Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 22 June 2021.
Llywydd, Delyth Jewell is right that loneliness is regularly reported by populations across the United Kingdom as one of the impacts of coronavirus, not simply in the Red Cross survey but in the fortnightly surveys that we participate in as a Welsh Government. And that isn't simply connected to mental health, important as that is; it can simply be that people feel that those normal social interactions that they would be able to rely on at any other time have been much more difficult for them. Health boards are one of the ways in which we can respond to that, but we have relied a great deal on the third sector to provide those basic levels of connection with people, opportunities for people to have conversations with another human being, to link people sometimes to wider volunteer efforts in localities where people who have found this experience so difficult at that social level can be found new and different ways in which they can still have that level of human contact. And social prescribing, as the Member says, is certainly an important part of the way in which future primary care services for people with those sorts of low-level, as they're sometimes called, mental health and well-being needs can be met in the community, by facilitating access to that wider range of possibilities that already exist in the community, but where sometimes an introduction via a social prescription can break down the barriers that people can feel between their own needs and ways in which those could be met in the community. And a greater emphasis on social prescribing will certainly be part of the Welsh Government's response to the coronavirus impact in the months ahead.