Self-harm

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:11 pm on 3 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:11, 3 March 2020

I very much agree that the experience that a young person, or anybody who has had an experience of self-harm or attempted suicide, has in an accident and emergency department is really crucial to their ability to make a recovery from that. It is why, over the last five years, we have invested more in specialist mental health presence at the front door of emergency departments, so that people who otherwise spend their time dealing with the physical ailments that come through the door have access to specialist help on the spot when they know they are dealing with an episode that is rooted in unhappiness and mental health causes. And making sure that those staff have access to that specialist help themselves, are trained to identify instances of self-harm, and to be able to respond to that in a supportive way, in a way that doesn't imply blame, that doesn't imply that people are somehow getting in the way of other people who need help more—we've all read the accounts in that report and other places—making sure that we tackle that by training and by additional specialist help at the front door of hospitals are the ways in which we have attempted to strengthen services.