In 2020-21, we also made almost a further £4.8 million available to support our pandemic response. Over £3 million of this supported the rapid implementation of long-lasting injectable buprenorphine, or Buvidal as it is known, for at-risk ex-heroin users, something I will talk about later. The remainder included funding to support PPE requirements, extra residential rehab placements and a digital inclusion fund for service users who are potentially digitally excluded.

The Welsh Labour Government has protected and enhanced the substance misuse budget in Wales, and the same cannot be said for Governments in other parts of the UK. The Dame Carol Black review of treatment services in England was published in July, and, like in England, we are already at an advanced stage with many of her recommendations. Our substance misuse delivery plan, I'm pleased to say, is firmly based within a health and harm reduction approach. We've also protected and ring-fenced our substance misuse funding, and are working closely with housing and across mental health to address the challenge of co-occurring and complex needs.

On the co-occurring agenda, with both mental health and wider well-being in my portfolio, I am clear that there are good opportunities for continued improvement in joint working both here and across Government, and I'm determined to do what I can to achieve this.

I'm also committed to supporting the work of the Minister for Climate Change as we build on the success over the past year in ensuring an 'everyone in' approach to homelessness, and that wraparound mental health and substance misuse support can be provided. This was a huge undertaking, initially housing over 2,000 people, with over 800 needing to access substance misuse services, and that was just in the first months of the pandemic. Some of these were new to services and had the most complex needs.

In total, over 13,300 people have been housed since the onset of the pandemic, with over 3,000 referrals to substance misuse services. I'm really proud of our substance misuse and mental health services, who work tirelessly to support the most vulnerable, and we are now engaged in developing the future approach to rapid rehousing. We've already invested an additional £1 million per year to tackle complex needs, both substance misuse and mental health, for those individuals within homelessness services.

The introduction of Buvidal, which I mentioned earlier, has significantly reduced the need for service users to attend community pharmacies and clinics, thereby protecting their health and that of key workers. Over 1,000 service users are now benefiting from this treatment, and there is significant anecdotal evidence that many are experiencing significantly improved outcomes.

In Cardiff, we saw the first person in the UK to have this support through their GP practice, and Wales is leading the UK, if not the world, on this groundbreaking new treatment. I had the opportunity recently to meet a young woman who'd benefited from this treatment, and heard first-hand the absolutely transformational impact it has had for her. A rapid review of this new treatment, its benefits and value for money, is being undertaken to inform future policy.

Whilst even one substance misuse-related death is a tragedy and one too many, I was encouraged to see that the August 2020 ONS data referred to already by Peredur showed the lowest rate of drug misuse deaths recorded in Wales since 2014. Wales was the only nation in the UK to see drug misuse deaths drop during 2020. Although it is pleasing to see the number of deaths reduced, we will be evaluating the statistics for Wales, taking into account geographics, substances and situational factors, and we'll work closely with harm reduction groups and area planning boards in order to formulate an appropriate policy response to ensure a further continued reduction in future.

Another key part of our harm reduction agenda is our national naloxone initiative, where we have made excellent progress. An important development in naloxone is the work we're undertaking with the police to enable officers to carry nasal naloxone on duty. We've also funded a pilot whereby peers distributed take-home naloxone on the streets. This has been highly successful and has resulted in all areas of Wales looking at replicating this model.

We allocate £1 million ring-fenced annual funding for the provision of tier 4 residential rehab and detoxification services. In April 2020, we launched our new residential treatment framework, Rehab Cymru, which offers over 30 settings, including three in Wales. Rehab Cymru provides an approved list of residential rehab providers and the availability to see types of treatment, pricing schedules, location and inspection reports in order to assist in service users' and professionals' choice. Since the introduction of our residential rehab framework, there has been a total of 238 referrals made through Rehab Cymru, from inception in April 2020 to July 2021.

I am concerned, though, that provisional data for alcohol-specific deaths during 2020 in England and Wales, published in May 2021, shows a significant rise. There may be many factors that have contributed to this, which we are considering. However, while we await final figures, I hope that through the implementation of minimum unit pricing for alcohol, and actions such as developing the soon to be published alcohol-related brain damage treatment framework, we can more effectively tackle this issue.

While I welcome the opportunity to respond to this debate and outline the positive work and outcomes being delivered, I am not at all complacent; there is still a lot more to do. Still, I am committed to making a difference, will continue to progress our commitments in the substance misuse delivery plan and, of course, consider what more we may need to do as we continue to respond to the pandemic and its wider impacts. Diolch yn fawr.