Supporting Vulnerable People

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:34 pm on 12 October 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:34, 12 October 2021

Llywydd, I thank Delyth Jewell for that important point. She will knew that some analysts say that loneliness should be added to the five giants that Beveridge set out at the start of the welfare state as one of the great social policy challenges of our time. I thank her for what she said about the importance of the Red Cross. She will know that, over last winter, the Welsh Government funded a series of actions by the Red Cross itself to assist in returning people to their own homes when they were discharged—sometimes after a brief period just visiting an A&E department; sometimes after a stay in hospital—precisely to make sure that those people who are lonely and isolated had another human being alongside them when they returned to their own homes, and were helped to settle in and make sure they had everything that they needed. Can I commend as well the work of the Older People's Commissioner for Wales in this area? I know my colleague Julie Morgan has been working closely with the commissioner and her office to put services in place to combat loneliness amongst old people. And sometimes this is a very simple set of arrangements, in the field that Peter Fox pointed to, of the voluntary and the third sector—just a simple phone call to somebody who doesn't hear another human voice from one day to the next, and just takes an interest in how they are doing and what they are going through, can make a real difference to people. And there are many, many volunteers now, in all parts of Wales, who take part in those simple but effective measures that can make a difference to loneliness.