Hafal’s response to the National Assembly for Wales’ Environment and Sustainability Committee Consultation on the general principles of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Bill
1. Hafal fully supports the Bill’s aims to simplify and streamline strategic planning for public bodies in Wales, and to ensure that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
2. We are concerned about the lack of references to Carers within the Bill. Carers clearly play a vital role in providing unpaid care to family members, friends or partners. In doing so Carers save the UK economy many billions of pounds each year, as well as significantly saving Health Boards and local authorities increased health and social care costs. Ensuring the well-being of carers clearly impacts of future generations, and so it is disappointing to not see this reflected within the Bill
3. According to the most recent Census there are more than 370,000 people in Wales, of all ages, providing unpaid care and support to relatives, friends of neighbours who are disabled, frail or otherwise vulnerable. For the vast majority their main contact with statutory services is via a health care professional. We fully support the view of the Wales Carers Alliance which is calling for this legislation to make clear that Health Boards and NHS Trusts are the lead agencies for carers in respect of the provision of advice, information and sign-posting to other services.
4. Like the Wales Carers Alliance we too are concerned about the oversight within the legislative process which has incrementally diluted the legal status of strategic planning for carers in Wales, in particular the specific duty, as the lead agency for carers strategies, on Health Boards and NHS Trusts and the detail of the local carers strategies provided by regulations under the Carers Measure
5. We would also like to have some clarity on a proposed amendment to the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 set out in Schedule 4 paragraphs 28 and 29. The joint schemes for the provision of local primary mental health support services it refers to are currently developed under the provisions of section 2 of the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 which require that the local mental health partners for a local authority must take all reasonable steps to agree a scheme:
(a) Which identifies the treatment which is to be made available for the area (local primary mental health treatment), and
(b) For securing the provision for that area of the local primary mental health support services (described in section 5 of the Measure)
The prime purpose of these schemes is to identify the local primary mental health treatments which are to be provided for these populations and the arrangements for securing the provision of these services. It would be useful to understand the rationale for including what is effectively a service delivery document within local strategic wellbeing plans.
About Hafal
Hafal (meaning 'equal') is the principal organisation in Wales working with individuals recovering from serious mental illness and their families. We are managed by the people we support - individuals with serious mental illness and their families. Our 191 staff members and 150 volunteers provide help and support to over 1500 people with serious mental illness and 1600 carers. The charity is founded on the belief that people who have direct experience of mental illness know best how services can be delivered. In practice this means that at every project our clients meet to make decisions about how the service will move forward and the charity itself is led by a board of elected Trustees, most of who either have serious mental illness themselves or are carers of a person with a mental illness. Our mission is to empower people with serious mental illness and their families to enjoy equal access to health and social care, housing, income, education, and employment, and to achieve a better quality of life, fulfil their ambitions for recovery, and fight discrimination.
We look forward to working with Assembly Members, Ministers and officials in developing this piece of legislation.
Contact:
Peter Martin
Hafal’s Head of Public Affairs
Tel: 01792 816600
Email: peter.martin@hafal.org