Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 14 March 2018.
I recognise what you said at the start of your third question about stigma. There's still an unfinished journey in tackling stigma, both in the way people see themselves and mental health, as well as the way other people see mental health challenges, and in how we normalise the conversation about mental health in exactly the same way as we do with physical health challenges.
I remember and recognise the Gellinudd Recovery Centre opening. It was a very enjoyable day with an enormous cake, I seem to recall, and I actually went through some of the rooms that they were looking to open. And there was a conversation there about making sure that health service commissioners and others were aware of the spaces they had. And I looked at the layout, and it does look like somewhere you would choose to stay as opposed to somewhere where people are hidden away and that's a really important part about the feel of the place when you go in, and this really is all about recovery and that's the point; they refer to it as the Gellinudd Recovery Centre, because they want to look at how people are helped in that journey as well. It is a journey; there isn't a simple point at which you say a specified period of time will resolve all ills. We recognise that that isn't the case. So, there’s something about how we continue to look at what people commission, about the help and support that is there, and then making sure that, if there was a challenge in that work not being commissioned, that we would bring people together in exactly the same way we have done with other facilities as well. We bring commissioners together to look at the services that are already there to make sure they're properly aware of it and to think about how they are otherwise meeting the needs of their population, because that is the point: how does the health board, together with their duties with local authorities, plan together to understand people's needs and then do something to meet the needs that they identify?