4. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Services: Update on the Health and Social Services Regional Integration Fund

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:23 pm on 21 March 2023.

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Photo of Julie Morgan Julie Morgan Labour 3:23, 21 March 2023

I thank Gareth for those questions. Certainly, I said in the speech I made that we had established six national models of integrated care, and those are the models that the regional integration fund are working to. Those are: preventative community co-ordination; complex care closer to home; promoting good emotional health and well-being; therapeutic support for looked-after children and helping families to stay together; home from hospital; and accommodation-based solutions. So, we're concentrating the money that we're putting into the RIF on those six areas, and in the first year of the RIF, I think we've seen very promising results. Ccertainly, I don't think that some of the things that he mentioned are in conflict with those aims, such as a million Welsh speakers; I think that is a great advantage to the sort of work that we are doing here, and certainly is the Wales that we want to see. So, I don't see any conflict there at all.

We are integrating health and social care, and the regional boards are where we actually have a place where health and social care are at the table. So, it is actually making decisions jointly as well as other elements being there, such as housing, with the third sector and carers represented. So, it is the place where you can make the best integrated decisions. 

On delayed discharges, we've worked all the winter trying to tackle the issue of the shortage that we do have of social care workers and the issues that that has caused with delaying people coming from hospital. It does look as if those delayed discharges are now going down. The worst of the winter, we hope, is over, and the delayed discharges are going down. But a huge effort was made to create community capacity, and the regional integration fund played a major role in that. 

In terms of a national care service, that is the joint ambition of Labour and Plaid Cymru, and we're working together in the co-operation agreement to make that happen. We will be announcing an implementation plan by the end of this year, where I hope we will see staged proposals to reaching a national care service. The regional integration fund is bringing those elements together now, and is delivering now, but our ultimate plan is for a national care service.