Public Affairs Update - March 2024

The Welsh Government

New First Minister and Cabinet

Vaughan Gething was elected to be the next First Minister of Wales and has already appointed his Cabinet.

The key things to note are:

• Eluned Morgan keeps the health and social care portfolios. 
• Lynne Neagle has moved from mental health to lead the Education portfolio. 
• Lesley Griffiths takes on the social justice portfolio from Jane Hutt. 
• Hannah Blythyn keeps her portfolio of social partnership 
• Jane Bryant now leads on mental health as Mental Health and Early Years Minister. She's also new to the Cabinet. Jane Bryant was the Chair of the Senedd's Children, Young People and Education Committee. 

Clinical Lead for Women's Health

On 8 March the Welsh Government announced a new clinical lead for the improvement of women's health.

Dr Helen Munro, a consultant in sexual and reproductive healthcare, will take up the role of Wales' first ever clinical lead for women's health and Alex Hicks will be the new strategic network manager.

Dr Munro will lead in developing the Women's Health Plan for Wales. 

The Health Minister also announced £750,000 to commission research, from April 2025, focused entirely on women's health.

Budget 2024-2025

In response to the UK budget announcement on 6 March, the finance minister raised the issue around the Welsh deal from the Barnett formula and said that despite this arrangement they will continue to increase funding for Wales' health service by more than 4% next year.

She added that despite cross party agreement in favour of more flexible budgets, "the UK Government has failed to act on these simple requests". 

Eating Disorders

The Welsh Government announced a review of eating disorder provision, including the provision of a specialist unit in Wales, is currently being carried out.

They said that eight adult eating disorder beds have been made available in Wales at a private facility in Ebbw Vale, which will help more people to be treated in Wales instead of being sent to units in England.

Senedd

The Mental Health Standards of Care (Wales) Bill

James Evans, MS (Con) and Shadow Minister for Mental Health & Wellbeing, launched a consultation on proposals for his Members' Bill – Mental Health Standards of Care (Wales) Bill.

The Bill proposes improvement to both the Mental Health Act and the Measure in the devolved context where possible, namely to:

• replace the Nearest Relative provisions in the Act with a new role of Nominated Person. 
• enshrine a change in the criteria for detention to ensure that people can only be detained if they pose a risk of serious harm either to themselves or to others, and that there must be a reasonable prospect of therapeutic benefit to the patient. 
• introduce remote (virtual) assessment under 'specific provisions' relating to Second Opinion Appointed Doctors (SOADs), and Independent Mental Health Advocates (IMHA).

We expect a draft Bill later this year followed by scrutiny of the Bill early next year. 

Read our response here.

Update of the Senedd Chronic Conditions Inquiry

The Health and Social Care Committee received evidence during Phase 1 of their inquiry and have agreed the Terms of Reference for Phase 2. 

The Committee says that "A clear overarching message from the consultation was the need to improve person-centred, holistic care, and to stop focusing on individual conditions in isolation." 

Since the start of the year, they've been taking more evidence from those with chronic conditions, conducting focus group with stakeholder organisations, and receiving further oral evidence. The Royal Colleges Mental Expert Health Advisory Group will provide oral evidence in April and as a member of this group we will feed into their evidence. 

Welsh Parliament inquiry into children and young people on the margins

The Senedd's Children, Young People and Education Committee are holding an inquiry into children and young people on the margins who are likely to go missing or become victims of criminal exploitation.

The inquiry focuses on the nature and scale of the problem, specific concerns about at-risk groups, data collection and information sharing, the effectiveness of policy, and how well devolved and non-devolved services (such as criminal and youth justice) are working together.

We are finalising our response to the committee and will submit this by the end of the month. When available, our response will be published here. 

HEIW

HEIW launched its first progress report of the Strategic Mental Health Workforce Plan for Health and Social Care, outlining the increase in training places, improvements in digital learning, and compassionate leadership.

Read a copy of the report.

Consultations

Welsh Government: Mental Health and Suicide Strategies / deadline 11 June

The Welsh government is seeking views on a new mental health strategy for Wales and a revised draft Suicide and self-harm strategy.

The mental health strategy has four overarching visions:

• People have the knowledge, confidence and opportunities to protect and improve mental health and wellbeing
• There is cross-Government action to protect good mental health and wellbeing
• There is a connected system where all people will receive the appropriate level of support wherever they reach out for help
• There are seamless mental health services – person-centred, needs-led, and guided to the right support first time, without delay.

Read the draft strategies here.

Please look out for our next Welsh Branch newsletters for other ways to share your thoughts with us!

BPS Deadline: 29 May 2024.

Welsh Government: children missing education database / deadline 25 April

The Welsh government are consulting on draft regulations that will place a requirement on local authorities to develop a database of children in their areas who are potentially missing education (CME) and place a requirement on local health boards to share basic information about children with the relevant local authority, so that they can establish the database.

Find out more about this consultation.

BPS Deadline: 10 April 2024.

HEIW: new HEIW AHP Workforce Development Plan / deadline 31 March

HEIW are consulting on their plans to further develop the AHP Workforce in Wales and list a number of areas and actions for improvement. These include among other areas:

• Promoting the roles of AHPs/psychologists – delivering a campaign and conference 
• Updating HEIW information on AHPs (which currently aligns with England) 
• Issues around retention and the recruitment of a retention lead 
• Supporting career development 
• Lack of, and poor quality data and mapping the workforce 

We aren't responding to the consultation but if you'd like a copy, please contact [email protected].

Please email [email protected] to share any comments you may have on the above consultations.

Your feedback is important to us!