1. What is the Welsh Government doing to improve health outcomes in Powys? OQ56773

Llywydd, I thank Russell George for that question. Amongst other actions taken by the Welsh Government, we go on investing in capital projects to improve existing hospital facilities in Powys, as well as supporting a business case to build a new multidisciplinary well-being campus in Newtown.

Thank you, First Minister, for that answer, and, indeed, Powys health board, working with the local authority, have submitted the proposals for the plan—the proposal that you've outlined. I've raised this matter with you a number of times previously, First Minister. The plan would see a cutting-edge, new facility, a new community hospital, with additional services as well being located in Newtown to serve the people of north Powys. The facility would also improve health and well-being outcomes as well, and mean that people can receive appointments more locally in Newtown, or in north Powys, rather than having to travel out of county. So, they are very much a proposal and project that are supported by me. 

I understand that the plans are working through a scrutiny process with Welsh Government at the moment, between Welsh Government and the health board, and I would be very grateful, First Minister, if you could provide an update today. I'm keen that these plans are approved, but I would be keen to have an understanding of when you think the Welsh Government will give the green light to this very important project for mid Wales.

Llywydd, I thank Russell George for that further question, and thank him indeed for his very consistent support for this project, which I agree with him will offer all those advantages to the local population in Newtown and in the surrounding area. And it is, as Russell George has said, a joint project, an example project in that way of how a local authority and a local health board can come together to provide a new health facility that is not simply in the narrow sense a health facility, but has all that well-being and wider agenda that we know makes such a difference in the lives of people who use it. 

Russell George is right, Llywydd: the business case has been submitted to the Welsh Government. There is now that iterative process where the plans are interrogated, questions are asked, replies are received. And the good news is that that process is now well under way. So, I look forward, as he does, to the completion of that project. It's a project the Welsh Government is committed to supporting. It's right that there is a scrutiny process to make sure that an investment of this sort, which is a once-in-a-generation investment, is capable of delivering all the things that people locally would wish to see, and that the money that we will invest in it is achieving the maximum positive impact for that local community. 

I'm sure that Russell George would also agree with me that the £15 million upgrade to Machynlleth hospital, which is currently under way thanks to Welsh Ministers and Welsh Government money, is welcome, as is the ongoing multimillion-pound project in Llandrindod Wells. But more than geography—and the pandemic has exposed this particularly—the biggest inequality in health outcomes is between our most and least well-off communities. So, do you agree with me, First Minister, that the best way to improve health outcomes in Powys, and elsewhere, is to build a fairer Wales?

I thank Joyce Watson for that, Llywydd, and thank her for drawing attention to the Bro Ddyfi hospital in Machynlleth. There is a good example of a proposal brought forward by the Powys health board, which completed the full business case process and allowed Welsh Ministers to approve the £15 million that will be invested there in March prior to the election.

The general point that Joyce Watson makes, Llywydd, is surely the right one—that health inequalities are just one example of the wider inequalities that we see in our society. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 commits this Senedd to work for a more equal Wales. And a more equal Wales, where the gap between the top and the bottom was narrower than it is today, would have positive impacts for people in many aspects of their lives, and certainly would lead to better health outcomes. We know more equal societies around the world enjoy better health outcomes than more unequal societies. That is why the agenda of this Welsh Government—in its fair work agenda, in its work for a fairer Wales—is dedicated to exactly the sort of outcome that Joyce Watson has suggested.

The Royal College of General Practitioners in Wales say that loneliness and social isolation can be as bad for patients as chronic long-term conditions. Loneliness puts people at a 50 per cent increased risk of an early death. Forty-one per cent of people in material deprivation were lonely, compared with those of around 12 per cent who are not in material deprivation, and that's following on from the issue that Joyce raised earlier. Could I therefore ask what support is the Welsh Government providing to local authorities to maximise opportunities and services to reduce loneliness and isolation as we emerge from lockdown restrictions? Thank you. Diolch.

I thank Jane Dodds for the question, Llywydd.

And she is right, of course, that we are much more aware today than we would have been even 18 months ago of the impact that loneliness and isolation has on people's sense of well-being and, indeed, on their physical health as well. And there is a great deal for us to learn from the experience of the pandemic in attending to the impact of loneliness and isolation in the lives of Welsh citizens. We faced this regularly, Llywydd, it seems to me, during the pandemic crisis. Very early on, you will remember we changed the rules in Wales, to allow people going out to exercise—and you'll remember that, at one point, we were only able to go out to exercise once a day. Then we changed the rules to allow someone to accompany you for that exercise, because of reports we had, particularly from women, about a feeling of isolation if they were required to exercise alone. We changed the rules in Wales so that a single-person household could form an extended household with another household before we were able to liberalise the rules on extended households more generally. And, again, that was because of the evidence of the way in which single households—particularly households where a single adult was looking after children as well as themselves—needed the support of another household for the reasons that Jane Dodds has suggested.

Our actions at a community level are both with local authorities but also with the third sector as well, who have a very important part to play in all of this. And Llywydd, just to give one example, the Ffrind Mewn Angen scheme—the Friend in Need scheme—that was part of the COVID response, was established in June of last year and it's run by Age Cymru, and it means that an older person living on their own can receive a weekly telephone call from someone who's been trained as a volunteer befriender. It's advice, it's support, it's an informal chance just to hear another human voice. And we know there are many people, particularly elderly people, living alone who can go days on end without ever having another human encounter, with all the adverse impacts that Jane Dodds pointed to. And that excellent scheme—the Ffrind Mewn Angen scheme—is designed here in Wales to make a difference to the loneliness and isolation that people experience in that way.