5. What is the Welsh Government doing to support carers? OAQ54291

I thank Jayne Bryant for that question. The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 is groundbreaking as it gives carers the same right to support as those for whom they care. Welsh Government also invests significant resources, including through the integrated care fund, to support the well-being of carers.

Thank you, First Minister. Carers groups are invaluable to many, and one of my constituents, Chris Kemp-Philp, told a recent event here in the Senedd that Newport Carers Forum saved her life, and it’s like having a second supportive family. Last week, Chris and other members of the Newport Carers Forum came to the public gallery to watch my short debate on caring for our carers. The forum is a vital support network for adult carers, people whose contribution to society is often overlooked. There’s no doubt that we couldn't do without carers. Sadly, many of them feel undervalued, and that was evident to me when I visited them yesterday in Newport to discuss carers. We know that figures of carers are underestimated and they’re growing. The 16,000 carers in Newport face similar issues to the 370,000 carers across Wales. Respite is vital in avoiding care breakdown. Reductions in respite packages hugely impact on carers. What action is the Welsh Government taking to ensure that carers receive the right respite that they need?

Can I thank Jayne Bryant both for that question and for the work that she is doing to make sure that, on the floor of this Assembly, we continue, as we have, I think, for many years, to have the needs and interests of carers firmly in front of us? It was great to see the Newport Carers Forum here in the gallery listening to the short debate last week.

Of course, respite care is very important, both for carers, but also for the people they care for as well. It’s why we’ve put money directly into the hands of local authorities—£3 million of Welsh Government money—to support carers in that way. It’s also true, Llywydd, I think, that there is a new debate happening across Wales about the form of respite care, and about innovation in the way that respite is provided—‘rethinking respite’, I think, is the slogan that’s used by those people who are part of that debate, and we want to be part of that here through the carers ministerial advisory group. You see it, Llywydd, I think, particularly in the integrated care fund; £15 million of that fund is specifically set aside to provide for the needs of people in the community, and direct support to carers is part of that £15 million package—looking at new ways in which things can be done, recognising the importance of respite care, and, crucially, working with carers groups of the sort that there are in Newport to make sure that the revised services of the future are genuinely co-produced, learning from those who benefit from them and on whose voluntary efforts we so much rely.

The integrated autism service and autism spectrum disorder strategic action plan final report, commissioned by the Welsh Government, was published at the end of March. This said that,

'whilst the IAS can work with parents and carers it cannot work directly with children', with consequent reliance upon education services to provide support following diagnosis, but, quote,

‘there are continuing weaknesses in education provision for children with autism’ and

'also concerns that this means little support for parents and carers in the home'.

Reponses to their survey from parents and carers indicated continuing gaps and weakness in post-diagnostic support, with almost half reporting they had no support after diagnosis. How, therefore, do you respond to the concern raised with me by a charity supporting children of families in north Wales—children with autism in families in north Wales—that carers often have to give up their careers and full-time work due to long-term caring responsibilities and family stress, with financial worries caused adding to the stress of an already very stressful family environment?

Well, Llywydd, I suppose I respond in two ways: first of all by acknowledging what we know about the impact that caring for a child with any form of disability or special need has on family life, and to put in place the services that we know are needed to help those families to go on doing the thing that they almost always want to do the most, and that is to go on having care of that child. The second thing, then, is to echo what was said in the report that the Member quoted from, because what that report is saying is that we need a service for those children and those families that draws together the contribution that all services make—the contribution from the health service, the contribution from social services, the contribution from the education service as well. The Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 that was passed on this Assembly's floor and will be implemented from September of next year, with £20 million to support preparation for it, has at its heart that idea of the child at the centre of all the decisions that are made. So, the ambitions in the report that Mark Isherwood quoted from are ambitions that we share, and the actions that we have taken in creating the integrated autism service, in instituting a cognitive development service for young people alongside the child and adolescent mental health service, in reforming the way in which education services respond to young people with special needs—all of that is part of our determination to draw those services together around the family and to support them in the vital work that they do.