3. How will the Minister ensure that the mental health implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are recognised in the Welsh Government's budget allocations? OQ55385

Research tells us that the pandemic will affect many people's mental and emotional well-being. That's why we have announced a number of specific measures targeted at supporting mental health, including £5 million for mental health in schools and £3.5 million to enable health boards to respond to increased demand.

Thank you, Minister. I welcome any funding for the mental health implications of the pandemic, but I do believe it is vital that those are additional allocations, and I was very concerned to see that £7 million had been removed from the mental health service improvement fund in the supplementary budget. Now, I'm sure all Members recognise that we have a very long way to go in Wales in delivering parity between mental and physical health. There have been two landmark reports in this Assembly: the Children, Young People and Education Committee's 'Mind over matter' report on children's mental health, and the health committee's 'Everybody's Business' report on suicide prevention. The loss of life to suicide remains a major public health emergency. What assurances can you offer, Minister, that you will continue to prioritise not just the response to the pandemic, but the very important service transformation that we want to see in adult and children's mental health in Wales? Thank you.

I'm grateful to Lynne Neagle for raising this, and I completely agree with everything she said about the importance of service transformation happening as well as our initial and immediate response to the COVID-19 crisis. I just want to reassure that the £7 million that was removed from that particular line in the budget was done on the understanding that that was work that couldn't happen because of the COVID-19 crisis, or that was slowed down, and that was what was able to free up that funding in the first place. But, clearly, the provision of mental health services is going to be more important than ever given the pressures on people as a result of the crisis. So, I give you my reassurance and my word that I will continue to value mental health very highly in my discussions with colleagues.

Minister, Mind Cymru has recently published a report into how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted our mental health, which shows that many people do not feel entitled to seek help and have difficulty accessing it when they do. Now, the report showed that one in three adults and more than one in four young people didn't access support during lockdown because they didn't think that they deserved that support.

Can you therefore tell us how much funding the Welsh Government has specifically made available during the pandemic to communicate to people across Wales about the importance of mental health, and to encourage them to seek support if they are struggling? And, what discussions have you had with the Minister for Health and Social Services regarding this matter in order to make sure that people who are in need of financial support receive the support that they actually need?  

I think that it's really important to recognise that there will be people experiencing mental ill health as a result of the coronavirus crisis who have potentially never experienced mental ill health before and don't necessarily know the services and support that are available to them, and potentially might not feel comfortable about talking about their mental ill health in the first place. So, the work that's already been going on with a wide variety, I have to say, of organisations continues and is really important. I know that the health Minister has been keen to explore within his budget how much more he can provide in terms of support for particular schemes. But, you asked about particularly focused highlighting of what support is available and how much has been provided to that. So, an additional £50,000 was provided for the mental health of unpaid carers, as an example, and that coincided with national carers week to ensure that carers were aware of the particular support that was available to them and targeted at them.

Other investment has been around increasing mental health in-patient capacity, recognising the challenges that there are during this period, and, of course, extending the mental health support scheme for doctors, which is now extended to 60,000 healthcare workers across Wales. They will have had that promoted to them to ensure that they are aware that that service is now available to them, given the pressures that people are facing in the healthcare sector particularly.