We often talk about the need to ensure that people have access to mental health services and that support continues to be available, particularly during such a challenging time. But our focus today is on supporting people who are suffering anxiety and how we can move on from the pandemic and how we move to the future. And although levels of anxiety have remained higher than they were prior to the pandemic, we have seen them rise and fall, too. As the restrictions are relaxed, levels of anxiety have reduced and, of course, that is totally understandable. I hope that we will see levels of anxiety falling further if things continue to improve and those restrictions are relaxed. 

By seeing friends and family, and participating in activities that we enjoy, we can all look after our own mental health and, for many people, mental health and well-being will improve as we return to normality. But, for others, the impact of the pandemic will be felt more deeply, and this could be because of the trauma that the individual has experienced, through illness or if that individual may have lost a family member or a friend to COVID. Caroline mentioned those people who were working on the front-line in our health service; of course, they've suffered trauma during this period too. We also know that the pandemic has had, and will have, an impact on our economy and our society, not just in the short term, but it's likely to continue to the medium term too. So, it is important that we understand the impact of employment, income and housing on people's mental health, and that we understand the circumstances that have changed during this period.

In order to restore our mental health post pandemic, it's crucial that we don't look at this as a matter to be treated by medical means only. Of course, we are committed to maintaining specialist services to help with mental health needs throughout the pandemic that require the help of our national health service, but I also think that we will need access to a variety of non-clinical support for many people. I'm pleased today that I had a first meeting with the task and finish group on social prescribing, and I do hope that this will be something that we can look into for the future. I've also presented a paper to Cabinet recently outlining these issues, and I have been entirely clear that we need more cross-governmental multi-agency work if we are to prevent this spike that we're anticipating in terms of mental health needs—needs that are based on social issues and issues of well-being that go far more broadly.