Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 6 March 2018.

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Photo of Leanne Wood Leanne Wood Plaid Cymru 1:44, 6 March 2018

I think you can do much more than that, First Minister. We know that children and young people with mental health difficulties go an average of 10 years between first becoming unwell and getting any help. And many of us here in this room, I'm sure, will have casework of patients who have had to fight to get any support at all.

Now, I've got reason to believe that the number of people detained by the police under section 136 for their own safety, which is due to be published soon, will have gone up dramatically. I've also been informed that because some patients are not deemed to be at immediate risk, despite having been sectioned, they can be waiting days for transfer. Service capacity is clearly inadequate to deal with crisis, and reducing the usage of section 136 has to now be a priority for your Government.

I will come back to this issue when those figures are published, but wouldn't you agree with me now that it's a good time to have a wider inquiry into our emergency mental health system to identify these failings? Isn't it time to stop pretending that everything is fine, when clearly these figures demonstrate that it's not?