4. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: The Housing-with-Care Fund

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:31 pm on 17 May 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:31, 17 May 2022

So, going backwards with your questions then, Jenny, on that last one, we're looking at a mixed economy, really. So, we haven't got very many of these yet in Wales, but we're accelerating the pace of building them. I want to encourage the regional partnership boards to go as fast as possible with that, alongside other care models. And one of the reasons I'm not putting hard-and-fast targets for how many of these to build and so on is because each regional board will have a different view about what's required because of the current mix of services in their area. So, what we want is not duplication but an integration of those sets of services around what, in this particular instance I went to visit this morning, has become the hub for those services, in a really great way, because people can be brought in to a space designed for the use of various equipment, to help them rehabilitate or re-enable, make the best use of their abilities. And then that equipment can be translated, once they've understood what's possible, using a disabled facilities grant, into their own home, in order to be able to keep them in that home, which is what most people want, as long as possible. And then there's also the chance of intermediate care or, indeed, even if you move into residential or nursing care, which some people do choose to do. And I met a lady this morning who was choosing to do that, but in a much more positive way, because she had a much better understanding of what she would be able to do for herself, and so did the home, and so she was likely to have a much more productive life, and her daughter was absolutely delighted with what had been done. So, it's a mixed picture; I wouldn't be able to say it would be the same everywhere in Wales, but we do expect that integrated service.

In terms of the numbers, I don't know the answer to that—that's Julie Morgan's portfolio—but we can get the answer for you. What I do know is that it absolutely is an invest-to-save, and that everywhere where we've worked together across the portfolios to do this, the families have been delighted, in human terms, but the local authority and the health board have been delighted in financial terms, because it is a very serious saving to the budgets of both of those organisations. And that's why, looking at the Gwent regional partnership board, and how integrated they've been in planning for this, it's a model we'd like the other boards to have a look at and spread out as fast as possible, with a view to getting as many people who are both out of county and out of country back into their own communities as fast as possible.