Emergency Mental Health Care

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 23 February 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:31, 23 February 2021

Llywydd, I thank Vikki Howells for that supplementary question. It gives me an opportunity, hearing her mention health inequalities, to remind colleagues here that this week is the fiftieth anniversary of Dr Julian Tudor Hart's paper in The Lancet on the inverse care law, a paper that has had a genuinely global impact far beyond Wales. It was sent to me, Llywydd, again this week by our former colleague Dr Brian Gibbons, reminding me of the continued relevance of that 50-year-old seminal piece of work. And, of course, Vikki Howells is right, as was Dr Gibbons, that the pandemic has exposed those fault lines in our society all over again. And in emergency mental health services, Llywydd, we know that those people who have the least access to mainstream services often have to gain and obtain health services through emergency routes. It's why the 'Beyond the Call' review was so important, to make sure that those routes are as clear and as easy as possible for people to read. 

Members who've had a chance to have a look at it will know that it tracks the 950 calls every day that come into emergency and out-of-normal-hours services across Wales from people with a mental health need of one sort or another. It looks to see what happens to those people, and only three out of 10 of them, Llywydd, turn out to need simply an NHS response; there are other aspects of their lives that need attention as well. So, the report's focus is on collaboration, on timeliness, on crisis planning for people who are known to have a pre-existing condition, on a missing person protocol, particularly important for young people, as Vikki Howells focused on in her supplementary question, and a single point of entry to help those who need help to get it in a crisis. And I'm very pleased to say that we've now got pilots, 111 pilots, in Swansea Bay, Hywel Dda and Aneurin Bevan health boards, all designed to put that aspect of the report into practice, so that we can do better in the way that Vikki Howells asked in her original question, to make sure that emergency mental health care is available to people at that point of need.