We're moving on now to item 9, a debate on petition P-05-854, 'Make Learning Disability training mandatory for hospital staff', and I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion. Janet Finch-Saunders. 

Motion NDM7177 Janet Finch-Saunders

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Notes the petition 'P-05-854 Make Learning Disability training mandatory for hospital staff' which received 5,654 signatures.

Motion moved.

Thank you. On behalf of the Petitions Committee, thank you for the opportunity to introduce this debate today. This is the eighth petition to have been referred for a Plenary debate, having received more than 5,000 signatures, since the process was introduced in March 2017. The petition, 'Make Learning Disability training mandatory for hospital staff', was submitted by the Paul Ridd Foundation, having collected 5,654 signatures. The foundation was established in 2016 by the sister and brother of Paul Ridd, who died whilst in Morriston Hospital in Swansea in 2009, at the age of 53.

Now, I want to start by describing some of the background to this petition and, in particular, to speak about Paul Ridd. From birth, Paul had severe learning difficulties, which meant that he spent most of his life in care. On 31 December 2008, he was admitted to hospital with a perforated bowel. This required major emergency surgery and, following the operation, he spent three weeks in intensive care, under sedation. Following this, Paul was moved to a general ward and his sedation was reduced. It was at this point that his family describe a deterioration in the care he received. They also felt that he was moved prematurely. They have referred to a number of issues that arose in relation to his care on the general ward. These included a loss of his notes on arrival, delays in administering medication, long periods with no observations taken, and a lack of recognition given to signs that his condition was deteriorating. This is heartbreaking and sadly serves as a reminder of health cases most of us here will be handling for constituents today. But, underlying all of these concerns is the petitioners' view that medical staff did not take Paul's learning disabilities into account or listen to the concerns and observations raised by his family and carers. Sadly, Paul died in hospital on 23 January 2009.

Now, two years after his death, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales published a report into complaints made by Paul Ridd's family. This upheld many of their concerns and concluded that Paul's nursing care on the ward had been very poor and, when combined with his clinical care, had produced an unacceptable level of treatment. A coroner's report, following an inquest in 2013, found that he had died from natural causes that were contributed to by neglect.

So, I certainly wish to offer my condolences to Paul's family, at this point, for their loss, and also to commend them for the work they have done since then to ensure that lessons are learnt. I am sure that their commitment to improving the care that people with learning disabilities receive in hospitals will already have helped countless other individuals.

I will now move on to the specifics of the petition. Now, as I have mentioned previously, Paul's sister, Jayne, and brother, Jonathan, established the Paul Ridd Foundation in 2016. Their work has already led to the development and launch of a pathway care bundle for people with learning disabilities in 2014, with some support from the Welsh Government. This is designed to help hospital staff ensure that people with learning disabilities do receive a fair and equitable service when they visit hospital. However, when the Petitions Committee first considered the petition in January, the petitioners described concern over difficulty ensuring that the care bundle is implemented consistently throughout Wales. Key to achieving this, they argue, is for learning disability awareness training to be made mandatory for staff in hospitals, as outlined within their petition. So, this training would start from the principle of what a learning disability is—an understanding that the Paul Ridd Foundation contend is frequently missing amongst staff in practice.

Training should stress the importance of delivering an equal standard of healthcare to people with a learning disability, and to inform all staff of the need to make necessary adjustments to services, so that they are responsive and flexible to the individual needs of patients. It is this type of tailored care that they consider was lacking when their brother was receiving hospital treatment in 2009.

As well as the benefits to the individual patient, the foundation stresses that providing this training will assist staff to perform their roles to the best of their ability, and to do so for all patients in their care. They describe their view that training would complement the existing pathway care bundle by ensuring that all NHS staff are informed about its existence and what it covers, and that this would help improve what they describe as 'sporadic awareness' of its existence at present.

The foundation describes successfully delivering training of this type to over 1,000 learning disability champions, many of whom believe that the training should be mandatory for all staff. I am also aware, as I am sure other Members are, of other families of people with learning disabilities who are concerned about the care that their loved ones receive from the health service.

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

The most important thing is that it's not online training followed by a multiple choice test that people can take a number of times. People have to be properly trained.

Thanks to my colleague Mike Hedges AM for his intervention. And that is the point and principle, really—one of the main points and principles behind this petition.

Now, in advance of this debate, I have received correspondence from others supporting the petition, and I have been seriously saddened by reports, such as that after the death of an individual with severe learning disabilities who could not speak, an inquest allegedly found that the individual had not received appropriate care and treatment, and that health board staff did not respond appropriately or with sufficient urgency to the individual's presentation.

The Petitions Committee has also considered developments in England, where the outcome of the consultation into proposals to introduce mandatory learning disability and autism training for health and care staff is still awaited. We could await for the publication, but I ask Members here today—and this is what the petitioners are asking—why should Wales not lead the way? We need to see progress here. Currently, it is estimated that one in four healthcare professionals have never had training on learning disability or autism.

I must acknowledge the statement issued by the Minister for Health and Social Services earlier this year that £2 million has been made available over the next three years to improve NHS services for people with a learning disability. However, money alone will not achieve the core aim of this petition: making learning disability training mandatory for hospital staff. Similarly, whilst the Paul Ridd Foundation value the Minister's commitment to the Improving Lives programme, they have reiterated that mandatory training will be key in delivering the outcomes of the healthcare issues in that programme.

I will leave the final word in my remarks today to the Paul Ridd Foundation. Their purpose since his death has been that another family would not have to go through the same experience when in hospital and to ensure that all staff are supported to see the person, not the disability. It is considered that making learning disability training mandatory for hospital staff would go some way in achieving this. Diolch yn fawr.

Unfortunately, deep concerns still exist today about health inequalities and the disproportionate numbers of potentially avoidable deaths of people with a learning disability. I'm sure that many of us can reflect upon a constituent's case that highlights these concerns. It's something that worries me deeply, in that, here we are, in 2019, still having to address such inequality being experienced by people with learning disabilities.

Our health and care system needs to do much more to give people with learning disabilities the good-quality health and social care that they ought to expect as a right. People with a learning disability can experience hospitalisation, life-threatening illnesses and even premature death when unable to access health services for even the most routine conditions or ailments. It remains a stark fact that people with learning disabilities die on average 20 years earlier than the general population and that they continue to experience significant disparities in the quality of care and support they receive, as well as the outcomes they can expect. This is unacceptable in a twenty-first century Wales.

Llywydd dros dro, as we've already heard, one particular case that we should be aware of is that of Paul Ridd, who lived in Baglan, in my constituency, whose life may have ended in 2009, but whose story lives on and is key to this call for mandatory training for all health and care workers in every health and care setting. Paul's sister is in the gallery today, and she, along with her brother, decided to take action following their loss of Paul to address the fact that the lack of training and ignorance of his needs were considered as contributory factors in his death. And as already pointed out by the Chair of the committee, they established the Paul Ridd Foundation and have campaigned tirelessly for improvement in awareness and understanding by hospital staff of the needs of individuals with learning disabilities, so that they can provide a level of care no different from that of other patients. They have produced training material, created a traffic-light system, logos, which will be used on patients' records, hospital passports, and a pathway care bundle, working with professionals. Those logos are not new—we've seen them with dementia patients: the butterfly logo. They're already in existence for other conditions. This is nothing new in reality, but it's ensuring that it addresses the needs of people with learning disabilities.

Now, the pathway care bundle was launched in 2016 in Morriston Hospital and I was privileged to attend that launch. It sets out seven key steps—key steps, which, if followed, will ensure that all patients with learning disabilities will experience the level of care that we expect for all patients and for our loved ones if they attend hospital. And I was pleased that ABMU—as it was then, Swansea Bay as it is now—drew up a comprehensive programme of learning disability awareness training for key nursing and clinical staff, which included appropriate recognition of the role of family—and that's crucial here—carers and advocates in providing vital information to staff, helping to make prudent decisions about care. And Paul's family have been pivotal in ensuring this has been rolled out, and I congratulate them on their part in this.

However, as has been pointed out, learning disability training is not mandatory, and if it does take place, I've been made aware that it generally forms part of an induction session. What I don't know is: was that half an hour, 10 minutes? Who knows? It's very simple to say it's in the induction, but it's actually, 'What does the training entail?' That's crucial. Now, is this acceptable? No. It's not acceptable. Learning disability training should be mandatory and more. It should be refreshed, not on a one-off but on a regular basis. So, all staff—and I use the words 'all staff'—working in the hospitals need to have the correct training to ensure a smooth experience for patients with learning disabilities and their families. It must not be, as my colleague pointed out, e-learning-based or even classroom-based, it must be interactive with individuals and use the collaboration of organisations that work with people with learning disabilities in that process. And as I said, all staff, from the point at which they enter the healthcare system—whether it's a receptionist in a doctor's surgery, a receptionist in a hospital, or the nurse in an A&E unit—from that point they enter to whomever they meet in that journey through that system, they need that training. Different levels of training, I understand, but everyone needs to understand that training so that patients entering our hospitals are treated with the dignity and respect we would expect for everybody. And it is a challenge, but it's a challenge we must meet.

Now, in this Chamber, we should be determined that everybody who has a learning disability receives the high-quality care that meets their needs and their expectations, and which results in positive outcomes for that individual. In life, like many others, Paul had a right to be listened to and their needs understood, but tragically, this was not always the case. We owe it to their memory that people with learning disabilities are supported to live healthy and happy lives. They deserve nothing less.

We must deliver a system that ensures that patients and service users receive safe, effective and dignified care, and that those who provide care have the knowledge, skills and behaviours to support people with learning disabilities. I am aware that England yesterday announced they will actually be doing the mandatory training. I hope, therefore, that Wales will follow suit and ensure that training is training and not simply a half-hour exercise so it can be a tick box.

The estimated learning disabled population in Wales of 70,000 people are at a greater risk of physical and mental ill health, have a lower standard of health and a greater risk of developing poorer health, are twice as likely to access secondary care in an emergency, and die, on average, decades before the general population. Thirty-eight per cent of these deaths are avoidable—more than four times the rate of the general population—with hundreds more dying of avoidable deaths in secondary care. Yet, hospital staff do not receive focused learning disability training and are therefore not equipped to deliver the level of care required.

Mencap Cymru and the Paul Ridd Foundation are therefore right to call for mandatory learning disability training for hospital staff and to highlight the result of the Bangor University MSc research, funded by Mencap Cymru, which supported the hypothesis that improvements were seen in the attitudes held by hospital staff members towards patients with learning disabilities, following their participation in the learning disability awareness sessions. This is particularly topical, where a report by the UK Parliament's joint committee on human rights said last Friday that mental health legislation must be overhauled to stop the horrific inappropriate detention of young people with autism and learning disabilities, and where the UK health Secretary announced yesterday that thousands of mental health patients with learning disabilities and autism will have their care reviewed over the next 12 months, and each will be provided with a hospital discharge date or plan to move closer to home.

We must hope that the Welsh Government will participate fully in this on behalf of affected patients from Wales. The nature of an individual's learning disability varies widely and will affect the kind of support they may require. Many people with a learning disability will have a reduced ability to cope independently in a variety of situations, including health services.

The Paul Ridd Foundation and Mencap Cymru recommend that all hospital staff working in a role that contributes to the health outcomes of people with a learning disability or autism should have the proposed training. As Mencap Cymru state, however:

'Autism is not a learning disability'.

And as the National Autistic Society state:

'Autistic people can have different "degrees" of learning disability…. Some people will be able to live fairly independently—although they may need a degree of support to achieve this—while others may require lifelong, specialist support. People with a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome do not usually have accompanying learning disabilities, but may still have specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia.'

As I'm told daily by people with direct lived experience—the real experts—we must ensure that the learning disabled and autism communities are given a direct role in the design and delivery of services, moving beyond awareness to understanding, acceptance and empowerment. In other words, instead of making them fit into a model designed by people who don't think like them, we must become more flexible in the delivery of services and see the world through their eyes.

As the Paul Ridd Foundation and Mencap state 'we need: more than E-Learning,' as we heard. Content and training materials should be co-produced with people with a learning disability or autism and their families. Unconscious bias and implicit attitudes need to be addressed, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Equality Act 2010 must also be central to any training. And we must remember that that Equality Act 2010 requires that service providers must think ahead to take steps to address barriers that impede disabled people. In doing this, it is a good idea, it says, to consider the range of disabilities that your actual or potential service users might have. You should not wait until a disabled person experiences difficulties using a service. That's the law.

However, the regulation of health professionals, as opposed to social work professionals, is a matter reserved to the UK Government under the Government of Wales Act, which means that the Welsh Government could find itself in breach if it introduced a mandatory requirement for training of health professionals other than generic equality training. The Welsh Government could instead adopt the approach consequently taken in Paul Davies's defeated Autism (Wales) Bill, and make suitable learning disability or autism training available for health professionals.

The good news, however, as was briefly referred to previously, is that yesterday, following a public consultation, the UK Government announced its intention to introduce mandatory learning disability and autism training and its commitment to work with all professional bodies and the devolved administrations to agree a common core curriculum. Hopefully, therefore, we have a way ahead.

I'm pleased to be speaking in this very important debate, a debate that highlights just how far, I think, society still has to go to work for people who have brains that work differently. The petition highlights just one case in which the neglect, ignorance and lack of training for staff about learning disabilities have resulted in an avoidable death, but it's one case that's part of a wider pattern in which people with learning disabilities, autism or other neurological divergence can experience worse health outcomes, despite comprising a significant proportion of the population.

In many health settings, we know that conversations can be structured in a way that misses the diagnosis of conditions. Most neurotypical people will provide relevant information that goes beyond a direct answer to a question. For example, 'Have you vomited?' Answer: 'No, but I feel very, very sick,' whereas perhaps an autistic person may just provide a literal answer to the question, 'no,' which can lead to incomplete communication of symptoms and, as a result, missed or delayed diagnoses, and, for somebody who is non-verbal, that becomes even worse. Indeed, rates of almost every type of physical and mental health problem are significantly raised in groups of people with autism and/or learning disabilities. Evidence suggests that the way in which people are asked for their symptoms, asked to describe their symptoms, has a significant effect on diagnosis.

But rather than move to address this by increasing training, we've actually seen a reduction in many cases—for example, the reduction in the learning disability post provided in Bangor. The Nursing Times reports more widely that almost half of the universities with pre-registration learning disability nursing courses have discussed terminating their programmes next year due to student recruitment difficulties, which is frightening.

Of course, it's not just down to those students who are in the learning phase of their career. We need also to be ensuring better professional development for existing nurses, except, of course, that isn't happening. Our nurses are overworked, and we know that they lack protected training time. In Betsi Cadwaladr, of course, the proposal is that nurses will now lack protected lunch breaks as well—a scandalous lack of respect for the nursing profession that will be the topic of a Plaid Cymru debate later this afternoon.

But we have to ask ourselves why is it that we are continually seeing the role and training provided to nurses being less and less respected, despite the consequences that are highlighted here. It has to be said that this is another strong argument as to why we need neurodivergence to be a protected characteristic in equalities legislation, as, frankly, the situation currently is not good enough. I sincerely hope that the petition succeeds in making the Government take this issue far more seriously.

I want to introduce this Chamber to a constituent of mine, Mr Heddwyn Hughes. I first met Heddwyn and his family a good number of years ago, when they were experiencing some difficulties with the funding of his care placement in Mynyddygarreg and they came to me for some support and advice. I would have been perfectly happy just to talk to the family, but the family said to me, 'Heddwyn is your constituent, as well as us. Come and see him. Come and meet him.' And I was very pleased and proud to do so. He was a gentleman with severe learning disabilities that he'd had from birth. He'd been in care from the age of nine in a range of homes, but he was surrounded by a loving family and living in the community where he belonged.

We successfully resolved the funding issue, and Heddwyn continued to be funded by the local health board, as was appropriate, and I hadn't heard from his family for a very long time until this week. I couldn't instantly remember the case when I saw the e-mail, and when I opened the attachment and saw Heddwyn's smile, then I remembered who it was.

Heddwyn died in May 2015 in a care home run by the local health board. The jury at his inquest could not determine the cause of his injury, though he died having had a broken neck. But his inquest concluded that he did not receive appropriate care and treatment by the medical staff in his care home, that they did not respond appropriately to his presentation—he was a gentlemen who was physically able to move before the injury; suddenly, he could not move from the neck down. Now, if that happened to somebody who was neurotypical—if it happened to one of us—you would instantly call an ambulance. The staff decided not to do that in this case, they gave inappropriate information to the GP when the GP arrived, and the GP struggled to diagnose his condition. Eventually, he was sent to hospital with complete loss of use of all his limbs. But the hospital did not diagnose his broken neck for 10 days. And the reason given for that was, 'He couldn't tell us what had happened.' Of course he couldn't tell them what had happened—he wasn't able to communicate verbally.

There's a whole lot else that I could say about this case. But the family came back to me on this issue because they believe that the healthcare staff were doing their best, that they hadn't had the appropriate training to understand his needs, to understand his communication needs, and that they weren't able to provide the care that he needed because they did not know how—not because they didn't wish to, not because they didn't care, not because they weren't good people, but because they did not know how.

The family asked me—. They were here today and they asked me specifically to raise his case here as an example of a gentleman who had many years of life ahead of him, whose broken neck could have been treated and he could have continued to live a full life, even though he may have had a physical disability as a result of it. They lost him eventually to pneumonia, because he was not treated for a broken neck for 10 days.

I want to associate myself with everything that has been said in this Chamber today about this being an issue of equality, of people's right to treatment. Heddwyn was my constituent. His family are my constituents. He was a gentleman loved in his community, who had a full life. He lost that life because the staff did not know how to care for him. This is intolerable in twenty-first century Wales. And we will not solve this issue by sitting staff in front of a computer for 25 minutes—we will not. Effective equalities training—and many of you know that I worked in this field in the past—has to be achieved both by learning the law and learning the guidance and learning the appropriate thing to do, and then by having our own preconceptions, our own ways of thinking, challenged.

I know there are complications, as Mark Isherwood said, about mandating training, but I can't imagine that there would be any member of healthcare staff in this country of ours who would not want to receive that training if they were given protected time to do it. So, please, I really hope—and I'm very grateful to the Petitions Committee for bringing this to us today—please, please, for Heddwyn, for everybody else that we've heard about today, please let us have our staff properly trained so that our fellow citizens will not be put in this position again. Heddwyn and his family, all the families affected by this, deserve to be taken seriously, and our staff need and deserve the training that they need to protect and support patients like Heddwyn.

I'm pleased to speak in this debate today, and thank the Petitions Committee for bringing it forward, and I also thank the family and friends of Paul Ridd for bringing forward the petition also. Mr Ridd's tragic death was a travesty and clearly highlighted serious failings in our NHS when it comes to patients with a learning disability. A lack of training and awareness of learning disabilities were highlighted as a contributory factor in Mr Ridd's death.

Thanks to pressure from Mr Ridd's family the Welsh Government issued specific guidance on improving care for people with a learning disability, acknowledging that communication and an understanding of these needs is of paramount importance. However, the guidance doesn't go far enough, and I and many of us across this Chamber campaigned for an autism Act, which would have required all health and care staff to have autism and learning disability training.

The Welsh Government rejected the need for such an Act, which I would still maintain is very necessary. However, in the absence of an autism Act, we should, at the very least, comply with the wishes of Mr Paul Ridd's family, friends and the nearly 5,500 Welsh people who signed this petition. Learning disability training for all staff working in health and care should be mandatory.

I commend the efforts of Mr Ridd's family and pledge the support of myself and my party to making their wish a reality. We can't bring back their brother, but we can ensure that no one else's brother or sister, parent or child die of neglect because of inadequate training. I urge colleagues to support the petition before us today and hope the Welsh Government will commit to implementing the wishes of Mr Ridd's family. Thank you.

I call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, Julie Morgan.

Thank you. And, firstly, I would like to thank the Paul Ridd Foundation and the Petitions Committee for bringing forward this petition today, and I was very pleased to meet Paul's sister and brother and other members of the foundation earlier this afternoon. Today's debate does provide me with the opportunity to explain our plans to embed a comprehensive national education programme across the whole of the NHS in Wales, not just in hospital settings.

We're committed to ensuring that those affected by a learning disability lead an active and fulfilling life within a caring and stable environment, where the challenges they face are understood and society does all it can to address inequalities and potential hardships.

What happened to Paul Ridd was a tragedy for all involved, and I would also say the same for Helen Mary's constituent, and, for some time now, the NHS in Wales and the Welsh Government have committed to ensuring lessons are learned and history does not repeat itself. I am confident that we can achieve this, with great strides being taken in awareness and understanding of the issues facing individuals with a learning disability and how these issues can be addressed. However, we do recognise that sometimes progress has been slow and more needs to be done. 

The Paul Ridd Foundation have done an exemplary job in going into hospitals and educating staff on how to help those with a learning disability. Sadly, Paul's family know only too well why it's so important for all NHS staff to understand the issues faced by individuals with a learning disability, and I welcome their continued contribution as we develop a framework for the NHS in Wales. 

The landmark Learning Disability: Improving Lives Programme received Cabinet and cross-party support when launched in June 2018. This sets out our commitment to improving the lives of those affected by a learning disability. The programme contains 24 actions across the whole of Government, aimed at addressing issues that affect those with a learning disability. It covers early years, health, social care, housing, employment, education and transport. We have provided, as has already been mentioned today, additional funding of £2 million to support the NHS to deliver the health actions in the programme.

Implementing these actions will improve the consistency and quality of learning disability services in both primary and secondary care for children, young people and adults. One particular action is to ensure that reasonable adjustments are made in hospital settings to support people with learning disabilities and their families to access mainstream NHS services. This is why an education and training framework for all staff is so important. Our approach is to ensure that learning disability awareness training is fully embedded into the core training programme for all staff as part of the health board's mandatory equality and diversity training, supported by more in-depth targeted training for staff in key roles. I know that the foundation are anxious that this training should be mandatory and I can confirm that it will be. Our approach will ensure that staff are fully aware of the issues and able to deliver the best possible services for individual patients and their families.

Pre-registration education for all health care professional groups includes an element relating to dealing with vulnerable groups. The nursing profession has specific provision in the core curriculum on learning disability and includes a placement in a learning disability service. However, the approach varies across the health professions, with some professional groups receiving general awareness raising as part of wider training provision around equality and diversity, and of course some healthcare professions will have qualified prior to the inclusion of any sort of awareness raising training. So, we're committed to putting in place a comprehensive framework of education and training for all NHS staff to ensure that everyone working in a health care setting—

Will the Minister take an internvention?

Of course.

I'm very grateful. Can we ask you to ensure that that awareness training will include some element of face-to-face training as well as the very useful stuff that can be done online? Because I know from your previous work that you understand as I do that attitudes need to be challenged in a way that a computer can't.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Yes, and I will be going on to refer to that later on. We want to ensure that everyone working in a healthcare setting has the appropriate skills and training necessary for them to make the reasonable adjustments that ensure individuals with a learning disability are treated effectively and receive high-quality care appropriate to their needs. 

So, led by the University of South Wales, work is under way on developing a new three-tier framework approach to embedding training within NHS Wales. The framework will take a tiered approach. Tier 1 will be a national general awareness training programme for all staff. This will be embedded in health board equality and diversity training programmes, and this is effectively mandating training. Tier 2 will comprise enhanced training for those staff with regular contact with individuals with a learning disability, and tier 3 will comprise a comprehensive education programme for staff with frequent specialised contact. So, everybody will get the basic training and there will be more specific training for those that have more intensive contact. 

The university will work collaboratively with the NHS, with families and third sector stakeholders, including the Paul Ridd Foundation and All Wales People First, to develop the framework, and it will be rolled out in full from spring next year. And I know that the foundation—and they've made the point to me very strongly—believes that the training should involve people with learning disabilities themselves in an interactive way, and I believe that this should be achieved, and the Paul Ridd Foundation will be part of the group that will plan the framework and will be there to see that these important elements are included in the framework.

And, in fact, the approach we are taking goes further than the petition requirement. Training will be mandated for all NHS staff working in primary and community care settings, as well as hospital settings. And we will also be exploring opportunities to establish the framework across social care settings. We are also exploring the extent to which the new three-tier framework could be applied for autism as well as for learning disabilities. Training standards for professionals working with individuals with autism will be developed. In addition, a universal passport is being developed with service users, families, carers and NHS staff. The passport describes the issues affecting the individual so that mainstream NHS services can respond appropriately to their care needs. This will be a Wales-wide model and will be introduced in parallel with a framework of education and training.

So I hope that, today, I have reassured the Paul Ridd Foundation and the wider learning disability community of our intention and commitment to establish as quickly as possible a national comprehensive training programme for NHS Wales, which will include mandatory training and which will include interaction with people with learning disabilities, because I agree that that is one of the most powerful forms of interaction.

Paul's family asked me today whether the new framework could be named after their brother, Paul. I think that would be an excellent idea and a lasting memory of Paul Ridd. 

Thank you. Can I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Well, first off, I would like to thank the Deputy Minister for what I think has probably been one of the most positive responses that I've heard in this Chamber since I've been an Assembly Member. You've listened, you've acted and I think you've gone one step further, really, to actually make this petition very meaningful. And it really only remains for me to thank the Paul Ridd Foundation and, indeed, Paul's family, again, for bringing this petition forward and for their work—hard work—in seeking improvements to care for people with learning disabilities.

Of course, the Petitions Committee will now consider the petition again in light of all the contributions made. I think that the contributions made from fellow Assembly Members here today again made it very evident that we do take petitions very seriously indeed, and that this one in particular was very, very important. We will obviously discuss your response during committee, but on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank every Member who has stayed for this debate today, and huge thanks again to you, Deputy Minister. Diolch yn fawr. 

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. Therefore the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Before I move on to the next item, can I just say we are aware that there is some sort of high whistle or technical noise? We are investigating it, but if it is going to get any worse or carry on for any length of time, we'll have to see what we can do, but we'll carry on as long as we can. 

Deputy Presiding Officer, it is quite intense. It's very difficult to listen to the debate while it's there. 

All right. Okay. I'll adjourn for five minutes, then, to see if we can find out exactly what is happening. We'll adjourn and I'll ring the bell and give you a minute's notice to come back in. Thank you. 

Plenary was suspended at 16:39.

The Assembly reconvened at 16:54.

Okay, then, we'll reconvene, and thank you very much for your patience on that. I think we've hopefully found the solution to that.