Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:15 pm on 4 March 2020.
Thank you very much, and I think that the examples used in the debate have been very powerful and illustrate the issue that we are addressing here today. And I do recognise how difficult it is for patients and their families when care has to be accessed away from home, and it's obviously much more difficult if families have concerns about the quality of the care being provided. So, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to restate the Government's recognition of the importance of continuing to improve mental health services, including mental health in-patient provision. And I also want to provide assurances regarding the arrangements we have in place to ensure the quality and safety of care for Welsh patients receiving care for their mental health needs outside of Wales.
Our aim is to provide mental health care closer to home and to reduce the need for in-patient support. Our sustained investment in mental health services, which will rise in 2020-21 to £712 million, is improving outcomes. For instance, the investment in community services has led to a reduction in mental health hospital admissions over time. And we also do continue to see a reduction in the number of patients who are placed in units in England. In 2018, it was 130 and in 2019, it had gone down to 96, and we hope that this will continue, this downward trend.
But whilst our focus is on providing more support in the community, specialist in-patient provision will always be required to support people with high needs. And whilst we do provide in-patient support here in Wales, we do, in fact, have two NHS medium secure units in Wales, Tŷ Llywelyn in the north and Caswell in the south, we also provide access to support units in England. This allows patients in Wales to access very specialist support provided in units for the whole of the UK. But we do acknowledge that it is difficult for patients and families when they are placed a long way away.