Shadow Communities Secretary Mark Isherwood AM has called on the Welsh Government to review funding for Veterans NHS Wales and to reconsider a 2012 Healthcare Inspectorate Wales report which recommended the establishment of a residential facility within Wales for the armed forces community.
Raising the matter in the Assembly Chamber this week with the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services, Alun Davies AM, Mr Isherwood also called on the Welsh Government to undertake an independent review of progress to date on the Armed Forces Covenant, given that there hasn't yet been an independent review of progress and delivery across the whole of Wales since the establishment of the Covenant.
He said:
“Notwithstanding the £100,000 extra continuation funding provided for Veterans NHS Wales, the Report (on implementation of the Armed Forces Covenant in Wales by the Assembly Cross Party Group on the Armed Forces) recommended that funding for Veterans NHS Wales should be reviewed and targets for access to the service established, and performance against the targets regularly published. At the time we debated this in November, waiting lists for Veterans NHS Wales were nine months in the Swansea area and averaging five to six months elsewhere. Although they had secured three years extra funding from Help for Heroes to employ three full-time therapists to bring waiting lists down, they expected waiting times to rise again without additional support.
“And they’ve also provided me with figures showing that only 45 per cent of those veterans they're working with or referred to them are actually in employment. How, particularly, are you engaging with Veterans NHS Wales so that you and your colleague the Heath Secretary are properly informed (a) on level of demand and (b) on their recommendations to address that?”
He added:
“In 2012, the Healthcare Inspectorate Wales report, 'Healthcare and the Armed Forces Community in Wales’, had recommended that ‘the Welsh Government should consider the utility of establishing a form of residential facility within Wales’ for the Armed Forces community. This followed the closure of Tŷ Gwyn, which had been packed, in Llandudno, and Pathways, which had opened temporarily near Bangor, which had been packed with unfunded referrals from Wales, not least from the Police services.
“Many members of the Armed Forces community in Wales had commented on the need for a residential centre for veterans as ‘something you can see, touch and feel’, but the Kennedy report recommended against that, on terms of reference set by the Welsh Government, concluding there was no evidence or strong support ‘to warrant a residential facility which supports veterans with PTSD, so long as sufficient capacity exists within existing NHS and Third Sector providers’. Well, clearly, it doesn't.
“The evidence is there that that capacity isn't there and, in fact, the third sector capacity has been, sadly, reducing in some areas. So, how will you, or will you at all, revisit the findings of the Kennedy report in the context of 2018 circumstances and look at the overall demand - and requirements to meet that demand - amongst the Armed Forces community in Wales?”
In his response the Cabinet Secretary stated: “You will be aware that the Cabinet Secretary for Health has announced an additional £100,000 to increase the capacity of our mental health services in the community, and he has also given an undertaking to look and understand how those services are being used and whether we do need to increase our capacity in those services. But I do accept that the point you raise is a very valid and important one and it is a matter that we will keep under due consideration.”