Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:47 pm on 4 November 2020.
Well, the first thing to do is to ensure that we have the necessary information. We’ve looked at what the World Health Organization have said on this issue and, of course, what we need to do is to put things in place so that we don’t see this huge increase, which is bound to happen, becoming something that is more difficult for us to deal with. So, swift intervention is crucially important and that’s why we’re not waiting to carry out a new assessment and to revamp the whole strategy—we are already making those changes, we are already intervening, already ensuring that there is more care available, and available at a low level. I think it’s important that we do work with the voluntary sector in this regard because, very often, people don’t want to go through their GP to access the help they need, and perhaps we can find alternative ways of providing that support and ensuring that it reaches the people who are suffering.
So, of course, we will be keeping a very close eye on those developments and, of course, at whether we need to review the plans that we have—we amended our plan in October, just before my appointment—and if we do need to look at it again, then we will.