Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:58 pm on 26 June 2018.
Thanks to the Minister for her statement and for the announcement of the new funding. I appreciate that, to a large extent, housing, health and social care are all interconnected and they need to be considered together, which is the basic thrust of today's statement. So, we do appreciate that sentiment, and we acknowledge the need for different departments to work together to achieve these aims that you've set out and not to work in silos. So, I think that applies both at Government level, where you have to work alongside possibly two other Ministers to achieve these aims, and also at more regional level. So, I think it's a good move to have housing needs included in the regional partnership boards as a statutory obligation.
One basic issue regarding these three integrated areas is: are we building enough bungalows in Wales? Angela Burns touched on that. She raised the issue of bungalows, but Angela raised a number of valid points and I wasn't sure that this basic fundamental question was actually answered by you. You answered a lot of points, but I'm interested in what you think about this simple issue of the number of bungalows that are being built.
There are a variety of home adaptations that can be carried out to make homes more habitable for residents who have developed physical or mental issues, or who have simply got older. Of course, there is a question of priority. You mentioned different groups, but you didn't mention veterans, so are they part of the integrated care fund programme, or are they coming under another scheme? I would like some enlightenment on that issue. But obviously, there is going to be this problem of priority. There are lots of different groups. You did state that there are certain percentages of funding that will be allocated in different ways. I suppose one basic issue is: will there be a coherent system of priorities that is easily understandable to the applicants who are applying for grants for things like home adaptations?
New technology can sometimes be used to benefit the lives of fairly housebound people. For instance, a lot of day centres have closed in recent years. People living in rural areas may not be living close to a day centre in any event, so loneliness and isolation have become a major problem. Can we investigate home adaptations that encompass older people accessing facilities like Skype or something similar, or even in training those who are interested in accessing the internet? Could that form a cost-effective part of home adaptation? Obviously, we need to have broadband in those areas first.
I was intrigued by Dai Lloyd's vision, which I think is a good one—this idea that older people can sometimes live in semi-communal forms of living that will often be more beneficial for many of them. There's also something called reminiscence therapy, which can benefit people who are experiencing difficulties with their memories. This can be incorporated into the kind of village complex that Dai was referring to at one point. So, I wonder if this can be incorporated in some way into the Government's programme. Thank you.