3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Launch of the new Health and Social Care Regional Integration Fund

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:10 pm on 1 February 2022.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 3:10, 1 February 2022

Thank you, Gareth, and it's lovely to see you in person as well. I think it's really important to make sure that the outcomes framework is something that we are very focused on. The whole point here is that we've got to see deliverables at the end of this process. What is absolutely clear is the interrelationship between health and care, as you've pointed out. That is something that we've been very aware of. That's why we brought in an opportunity for that closer integration back in 2014, with the social services and well-being Act, and of course, the whole approach of the well-being of future generations Act is all also about long-term prevention, integration. So, all of those things are in place, and it's good to see that the UK Government is at last catching up with that philosophy and approach and we're seeing at least an aspect of that being developed in the Bill that's going through Westminster at the moment.

What's clear is that we have come a very long way through what we've learnt through the integrated care fund plans and the transformation fund plans. We are very keen, though, to learn from some of the lessons that were made clear and that were highlighted, as you suggested, by the auditor general. We are taking on board all of the points that they've made: timeliness on guidance, which is why you're seeing that guidance being published today, an alignment of multiple short-term funds, so we've knocked off several different funding channels here and we've put it all into one package, minimising duplication, strengthening those governance arrangements, better scrutiny, agree key outcomes, shared learning; all of that is absolutely now embedded into the next phase of the regional integration fund.

You talk about the difficulties with hospital discharges; there's nobody more aware of the problem than I am. We're still in a situation where we have about a 1,000 people in our hospitals who are ready for discharge. It's about that interconnection between the hospitals and the need to get them out into communities, making sure people are talking to each other. The Deputy Minister and I have been meeting on a weekly basis with local authorities to make sure everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet, to make sure everybody understands what needs to be done here. I think it is probably worth underlining that fundamental to this is the need for respect for people who are giving that care within our communities, and that means actually paying them properly. That's why we, from April, will be bringing in the real living wage, a manifesto commitment that we will be delivering from April—I'm very proud to see that happening—and the beginning of that process, to give respect to those people who are doing such sterling work in our communities.

However bad and difficult it is in Wales, I can assure you that it's a damn sight more difficult in England. I think it's been fascinating to watch in recent days how there's been this u-turn when it comes to vaccinations and now saying that actually, people who work in the NHS who haven't been vaccinated don't have to stop their jobs. But it's too late; they've already kicked out a whole load of care workers, so if there was a problem before, it's an even greater problem now in England. Of course, we are in a position where we already have very high numbers of our care workers who've been vaccinated; we'd like more of them to be boosted, but it's really important that we just keep on that pressure.

We do, of course, have lots of examples of things like hospital at home already across all parts of Wales. The whole purpose of this is to take those best practices and see how we can embed them and roll them out across the whole of Wales. Those kinds of examples, we do have lots of those already in Wales, but this is about embedding what works well.