6. Will the First Minister make a statement on the provision of night-time domiciliary care? OAQ52564

Local authorities are responsible for assessing an individual’s needs for care and support, including any night-time domiciliary care required, and for subsequently meeting those needs through a care and support plan. 

Thank you very much for that response. 

Age Cymru have carried out some important work in analysing the provision, or rather the lack of provision, of night-time domiciliary care in Wales. Unfortunately, only eight out of the 22 local authorities actually provided figures in terms of the number of adults receiving night-time domiciliary care. Of those local authorities that could provide figures, we know that only 1.92 per cent of care and support assessments led to night-time domiciliary care. Under 2 per cent of assessments led to night-time domiciliary care, with wide variations between local authorities.

So, what, therefore, is your Government going to do to tackle the lack of data collection in the first place and, more importantly, the lack of consistency and provision in terms of night-time support to our most vulnerable citizens?

Well, we've already taken action to improve the terms and conditions of the workforce. We provided £19 million of recurrent funding to local authorities for them to work with providers to further support the workforce. We're aware that a number of authorities use part of that funding to pay a higher rate for sleep-in cover. We will of course continue to work using, for example, the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 with local authorities in order to make sure that local authorities understand their duties and to create greater consistency. It's very difficult, of course, to understand on an individual basis whether somebody has been assessed or not for night-time domiciliary care, but it's hugely important that local authorities are flexible enough in their interpretation of the regulations and in their assessments to make sure that people get the care that they need.

Well, I think those figures just highlight the critical role of unpaid carers in overnight care, for people within their family usually. Obviously, in those circumstances, it's very often mental health care and traditional domiciliary care is not appropriate anyway. You'll remember that the Welsh Conservatives launched a policy last month to give grants to young adult carers to help them stay in education post 16, partly on the basis that it needed be recognised that carers allowance should be payable to those individuals, taking into account their overnight caring responsibilities as part of their hours for eligibility. Can you give us some steer on whether this policy is going to be considered by the advisory body that's supporting the Minister, who is, at the moment, trying to get together some policies to support carers?

Well, there is nothing that is not on the table as far as future policies are concerned. There is the question, of course, of identifying the resources in order to do that, but, also, we do have the education maintenance allowance in Wales, which I suspect would apply, potentially, to many carers. But, of course, if there are other proposals that come forward, we will, of course, look at them.