Loneliness and Social Isolation

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 24 April 2018.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 1:56, 24 April 2018

Ffrind i Mi is, indeed, an excellent innovation, First Minister. In fact, next month, you will be paying tribute to, and recognising the work of, Mary Adams, who's a constituent of mine in west Wales, for the work that she undertakes through the Rotary-backed RotaKids project. RotaKids spends time with people with dementia, with people suffering from loneliness and who feel very, very isolated in order to bring some of that relief into some of the hours of their days.

These projects are absolutely vital, and yet, in that very important Health, Social Care and Sport Committee report, the Government only partially accepted one of the recommendations. That was the recommendation to ask for three-year funding for projects such as this in order to ensure that they have a chance to embed in the local community and become self-sustaining. Will you work with your Secretaries of health, social care and finance whilst you're doing this review in order to ensure that we look at this, because all these projects are worth nothing if they evaporate after a year? In fact, they leave behind a really sad wake of people who once had something who can no longer access a very vital service.