1. What recent assessment has the Minister made of the hospital to home service provided through the partnership between Bridgend County Care and Repair and the Princess of Wales Hospital? OQ58690

The Hospital to a Healthier Home service in Bridgend has supported positive outcomes for service users. It has helped to reduce the number of bed days used at the Princess of Wales Hospital through supporting timely discharge, and has supported vulnerable people to maximise their incomes through access to relevant benefits.

Minister, I welcome that really positive response. Sarah Murphy and I attended in the last month a celebratory event to mark the ten thousandth individual referred on to that pathway from Princess of Wales, through Bridgend Care and Repair. What it does is a wraparound service around that individual, which makes sure that the home adaptations are done, that the nursing and other clinical care—but also other support, including things such as benefits assessment—are done when that person goes home. It is groundbreaking. It has set the standard, I have to say, for other trust and hospital services and partnerships throughout Wales.

I wonder, would you join me in congratulating all of those people, like Meinir Woodgate, the service manager; people like Rena; people like Christine Beadsworth, the hospital-to-home caseworker, and all those who contribute to the successful partnership? Can you tell us what reassurance we can give that these sort of partnerships will continue not to do 10,000 people referred, but 20,000 and 30,000 and 100,000 people throughout Wales?

Thanks very much, and thanks for your interest in what I think is a really important programme. Because we're in a cost-of-living crisis, this is the time when we really need to be wrapping our arms around people who may be under a lot of pressure. We have an opportunity in the health service to make every contact count, and that's part of what we're doing here with this particular programme. It is quite remarkable, I think, if you look at the service—I think there have been 628 successful benefit claims since April 2021 with an average of £3,800 a year of extra income per patient. That is transformational for these families. That is a huge amount of money, and this is money that they're entitled to. So, we've got to make sure that people really understand that this service is available.

There are lots of other services available. I know Jane Hutt has been promoting services that we're promoting with Citizens Advice and all the others, but that has represented an income overall of £2,391,000. That's huge. That's money not just going into their pockets, but also into local communities after that. So, I would like to thank them for that. In Cwm Taf Morgannwg in particular we've seen 217 patients supported. It is quite remarkable. And it's not just about benefits assessment, as you say, it's about adaptation and everything. So, I would like to join with you in thanking Meinir, Rena and the others for their work, and I have made it clear that I'd be disappointed if these successful services and projects were to be decommissioned. We're all under massive pressure at the moment. Everybody understands the pressure, but obviously this is an area where these people are entitled to this support, and we need to give them a little helping hand to get there. 

Minister, we know that hospitals are struggling to manage their bed capacity, with too many people medically fit for discharge but unable to do so, for a variety of reasons. The hospital-to-home scheme in Bridgend is one initiative from which we should learn, but what other steps is the Minister taking to help people move from hospital, such as more ambitious discharge-to-assess programmes to help not just our hospitals, but most importantly, the individuals whose needs could be better assessed away from the hospital environment?

Thank you very much, Altaf. I probably spend as much time on the delayed transfers of care, as you've pointed out, as anything else. There are blockages all along the system, we know that, but this is a particular blockage. I have regular meetings with local authorities—I had one yesterday—to really look at what we can deliver in this area. It's hard now, but winter is coming, and we've got to try and get as much capacity in our communities as possible. We are making some progress here, and I do hope that I'll be able to report to you very soon in terms of what that partnership working with local authorities has been able to deliver so far, and what we're intending to deliver over the course of the winter.

We know what the problem is. The solutions are not easy because it's all about care workers, and I was delighted to go and listen to what Unison had to say earlier. There are lots and lots of issues that are interconnected here, but delayed transfer of care is part of what's blocking the system. It's not the only thing. It's really important for us to understand it's not the only thing, but that is a significant part of the problem.