7. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of mental health provision in Llanelli? OQ55977

Hywel Dda health board is responsible for ensuring that service provision meets the needs of the local community, including for mental health. We continue to provide more funding for the provision of mental health services than for any other part of the NHS.

I'm grateful to the Minister for her answer. Dyfed-Powys police and crime commissioner Dafydd Llywelyn recently held a very successful community safety participatory budgeting event, inviting people from the community to prioritise funding for community projects to promote community safety. I'm very pleased to say that Mind Cymru—who happen to be my next-door neighbours, next to my office in Thomas Street in Llanelli—was one of those successful groups. I'm sure the Minister would agree with me that third sector and community organisations have an absolutely vital role to play in addressing mental health issues. They can often be easier to access, they can often be less intimidating, people will be less fearful of stigma; but I'm sure the Minister will also be very aware that many of those organisations are not on a very sound footing financially. So, what further work can the Welsh Government do to ensure that such vital voluntary and community groups are funded sustainably and securely into the future?

Well, I think that is a fair question, because if you look at examples like the twilight fund programme, that has been paid for by the transformation fund, so what we need to do is look at what works and then try and mainstream it. So, that's certainly a message that I've been giving very clearly to my officials, that we really need to embed this tier 0, tier 1 support, which is often much better given and distributed and serviced by the third sector. Certainly, I know that Mind mental health in Llanelli is doing terrific work. I met with somebody last week from Mind who was really talking about the massive pressures that they are facing now in relation to mental health issues because of the downturn in the economy in that area. So, yes, absolutely, certainly that is my intention—to make sure that we can look at a more long-term framework where they can understand that the money will be there for the longer term. Because we need to keep the skills that people develop in those communities as well.