Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:09 pm on 12 October 2021.
Thank you for those questions, Rhun. I absolutely agree that we're in a position in this Chamber where we can take action and not just talk about things, and that is absolutely what I want to do. Can I just correct a mistake that I made about the completion date of the evaluation of the 'Together for Mental Health' delivery plan? It's actually April 2022. I was struggling to reach my papers there. So, earlier than I said. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be ready at that time, and I also can't see any difficulty with making that available. Certainly, with other evaluations that the Welsh Government has commissioned, those have been published and made available on the Welsh Government website.
I should be clear, though, that this is an evaluation of the whole delivery plan, which I've tried to give you a flavour of today, which doesn't just cover direct mental health services—it covers housing, benefits advice, all those things. I wouldn't want you to think that it is the only thing that we are doing to track what's happening in mental health services. As I said in the statement, I chair a ministerial delivery and oversight board, which was actually set up by my predecessor, Eluned Morgan, because we recognised there was a need to have stronger oversight of the whole mental health system in Wales. That meets bimonthly, it's chaired by me, and I have a report on that on every single work stream that is being taken forward on mental health in Wales. Every single work stream has to report what they're doing. They have to highlight any risks, and they have to RAG rate their work. It's a relatively new body, but I feel that it is one that is coming into its own and that will help give us that assurance, as well, of course, as the evaluation across the piece of the delivery plan.
Your referred to CAMHS as well in your comments. Can I also assure you that, in addition to the ministerial delivery and oversight board, we've also got the ministerial task and finish group on the whole-system approach, which is jointly chaired by myself and Jeremy Miles? That used to be the task and finish group on the whole-school approach, but following 'Mind over matter: Two years on', we recognised that although there was a lot of focus on the whole-school approach, we needed to make sure that we didn't take our foot off the pedal on the more specialist services. So, that task and finish group was adapted to cover the whole system that would impact on a child, from school right up to the tier 4 services. I hope that that does give you some assurance that there are a number of mechanisms in place to scrutinise and drive performance in this area.
You mentioned the core data set, and I entirely recognise that it is vital that we have data if we're going to improve services. Before I became a Minister, I was constantly calling for the core data set myself. I don't recognise the date of it having meant to be ready by 2014, although I acknowledge that we haven't made as much progress as we would have liked, and that's partly due to the pandemic. Just to confirm to the Member that this work was relaunched in September as the mental health outcomes and measures board, and this work has been separated into two phases, which are developing an integrated mental health outcomes framework and a communication plan. That work should be completed by March 2022, and then there will be a period of implementation. But also to assure the Member that I entirely recognise where he's coming from on the need for robust data and driving that forward will be a priority for me.