3. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Well-being: Progress on ‘Together for Mental Health’ Delivery Plan

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:15 pm on 12 October 2021.

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Photo of Lynne Neagle Lynne Neagle Labour 3:15, 12 October 2021

Thank you, Ken. And thank you, too, for the work that you're doing in chairing the cross-party group, which I also very much appreciate. As you've highlighted, that cross-Government working on mental health is absolutely crucial, and there is a huge amount of work going on across Government in this area. I'm working closely with the Minister for education on the delivery of the whole-system approach to children's mental health and I feel that we're making good progress there and we're going to be hearing more about that shortly.

We've also got a range of employment projects that are designed to support people who are at risk of leaving employment because they've got mental health problems, and we've also got a peer support programme that is designed to ensure that some of the people who are furthest from the workplace can get back into employment. But I think it's really important that we don't stop there, and I'm very pleased to say that I've had very positive discussions with colleagues across Government about the need to work together on mental health. I see mental health as everybody's business in Government. We're taking a different approach to the budget this year, where we're having thematic discussions and one of those has been around the need to protect funding in mental health and to ensure that decisions taken in other departments don't cause disadvantage to people with mental health problems. So, I think we're making good progress. I also referred to the housing issues, but there's much more that we can do and I think we're all up for that challenge.

And just to say—I should have said in response to Rhun as well—that we are really upping our activity to promote the tier 0 support that's available. There's been a significantly enhanced presence of the C.A.L.L. helpline and SilverCloud on social media. I know that my predecessor, Eluned Morgan asked health boards to make sure that they were much more open in terms of advertising how everybody can access their services. But, of course, there's always more that we can do. But I'm focused on trying to improve the awareness of the support that is available and there is a lot of support available out there, especially at that tier 0, which we've invested very heavily in.