The design of the regional integrational fund builds on the progress made under the previous integrated care fund and transformation fund, whilst also responding to the recommendations from the respective independent evaluations and Audit Wales reports. This vital learning has helped us to shape the fund, which includes several key features, such as a greater focus on six specific models of integrated care; a clear outcomes and measurement framework; opportunities to share learning through communities of practice; and a longer term investment horizon, making use of tapering and match funding levers to support mainstreaming and sustainability.

For our regional partnership boards, this first year has been one of transition, as we amalgamate previously separate funding streams to create greater alignment of resources, so that we maximise impact and reduce administrative burden. Each RPB has designed its regional integration fund investment plan and is making good progress towards testing and developing critical components of our six national models of care. As we increasingly evidence the best practice from across the country, this will be built into national service specifications that will ensure greater consistency of standards and experiences across Wales.

Whilst predominantly a longer term transformation programme, the fund is delivering for people now. Over the winter months, funded projects have contributed an additional 360 step-down beds to help people leave hospital quickly and safely and alleviate system pressures as part of our community care capacity-building programme. Another good example of the positive impact of the fund includes the West Glamorgan RPB's admission avoidance project. This project has been providing short-term, low-level community support for people, such as decluttering people's homes to avoid unnecessary falls at home, providing unpaid carer support and arranging home adaptations to enable people to stay at home for as long as possible.

The Cardiff and Vale RPB's Get Me Home Plus project is another good example of a fast-track pathway in which multidisciplinary teams work with patients requiring a more intensive packages of support and reablement at home. This project is known locally as 'the pink army', and it provides a single access and co-ordination point within the hospital for a range of community services that can provide a higher level of intermediate care for people at home, supporting earlier discharge until the right level of longer term support is arranged. These are just two of many regional integration fund projects that are helping people to live well at home, to avoid admissions to hospital, and supporting safe and quick discharge home.

RPBs continue to commit over 60 per cent of their regional integration fund to models of care that provide greater community capacity both for now and in the future. The investment over the remaining four years will also greatly support our ambitions to move further faster towards an integrated community care system for Wales. The regional integration fund is also helping us to deliver other key priorities including the NYTH/NEST model. This is leading a whole-system approach to mental health and well-being services for babies, children and young people. And with the continued expectation that a minimum of 20 per cent of the regional integration fund is invested in delivery through social value sector organisations, it is also helping to support our agenda on rebalancing the care and support market.

I do recognise that RPBs and their partners have been working to maximise the impact of the fund at a time when wider system pressures and recovery from COVID have impacted massively on statutory partner resources and capacity. In this context, and at the request of our partners, Welsh Government officials reviewed the tapering and match funding requirements of the fund. In December, Ministers agreed to relax these arrangements in the short term, but not losing sight of the longer term aspirations of the fund to establish longer term mainstreamed services.

Learning and improvement is an important part of our ethos for the development of health and social care. I'm therefore pleased to announce today that, after a competitive tendering process, we've secured the services of the University of South Wales, in a collaboration with Old Bell 3 and Bangor and Swansea universities, to undertake the evaluation of our regional integration fund. It's evident that in its first year the regional integration fund has started to further a true partnership approach to investing in integrated services for the long term. I will continue to meet regularly with RPB chairs to discuss progress and will be taking a keen interest to see how our national models of integrated care continue to evolve over the next year.