Y Pwyllgor Iechyd, Gofal Cymdeithasol a Chwaraeon - Y Bumed Senedd

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee - Fifth Senedd

04/04/2019

Aelodau'r Pwyllgor a oedd yn bresennol

Committee Members in Attendance

Dai Lloyd Cadeirydd y Pwyllgor
Committee Chair
Darren Millar Yn dirprwyo ar ran Angela Burns
Substitute for Angela Burns
David Rees
Helen Mary Jones
Vikki Howells Yn dirprwyo ar ran Jayne Bryant
Substitute for Jayne Bryant

Y rhai eraill a oedd yn bresennol

Others in Attendance

Dr Chris O'Connor Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
Dr Kate Chamberlain Arolygiaeth Gofal Iechyd Cymru
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales
Ian Wile Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Caerdydd a’r Fro
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board
Joanna Jordan Llywodraeth Cymru
Welsh Government
Jonathan Drake Cyngor Cenedlaethol Penaethiaid yr Heddlu
National Police Chiefs Council
Matt Downton Llywodraeth Cymru
Welsh Government
Philip Lewis Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board
Richard Jones Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Hywel Dda
Hywel Dda University Health Board
Rhys Jones Arolygiaeth Gofal Iechyd Cymru
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales
Sara Moseley Grŵp Sicrwydd Concordat Gofal Mewn Argyfwng Iechyd Meddwl
Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat Assurance Group
Vaughan Gething Y Gweinidog Iechyd a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol
Minister for Health and Social Services

Swyddogion y Senedd a oedd yn bresennol

Senedd Officials in Attendance

Bethan Kelham Dirprwy Glerc
Deputy Clerk
Sarah Hatherley Ymchwilydd
Researcher
Tanwen Summers Ail Glerc
Second Clerk

Cynnwys

Contents

1. Cyflwyniad, ymddiheuriadau, dirprwyon a datgan buddiannau 1. Introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest
2. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gydag Arolygiaeth Gofal Iechyd Cymru 2. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with Healthcare Inspectorate Wales
3. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda Chyngor Cenedlaethol Penaethiaid yr Heddlu 3. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with the National Chief Police Council
4. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda chynrychiolwyr y Byrddau Iechyd Lleol 4. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with representatives of Local Health Boards
5. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda Chadeirydd Grwp Sicrwydd Concordat Gofal Mewn Argyfwng Iechyd Meddwl 5. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with the Chair of the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordant Assurance Group
7. Papurau i’w nodi 7. Paper(s) to note
6. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda'r Gweinidog Iechyd a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol 6. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services
8. Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 (vi) i benderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod hwn 8. Motion under Standing Order 17.42 (vi) to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting

Cofnodir y trafodion yn yr iaith y llefarwyd hwy ynddi yn y pwyllgor. Yn ogystal, cynhwysir trawsgrifiad o’r cyfieithu ar y pryd. Lle mae cyfranwyr wedi darparu cywiriadau i’w tystiolaeth, nodir y rheini yn y trawsgrifiad.

The proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the transcript.

Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 10:00.

The meeting began at 10:00.

1. Cyflwyniad, ymddiheuriadau, dirprwyon a datgan buddiannau
1. Introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest

Croeso i bawb i gyfarfod diweddaraf y Pwyllgor Iechyd, Gofal Cymdeithasol a Chwaraeon yma yn Senedd. O dan eitem 1, sef cyflwyniadau, ymddiheuriadau, dirprwyon a datgan buddiannau, a allaf i estyn croeso i'm cyd-aelodau o'r pwyllgor yma, a hefyd gyhoeddi ein bod ni wedi derbyn ymddiheuriadau gan Jayne Bryant, Dawn Bowden ac Angla Burns, a hefyd Neil Hamilton? Mae Vikki Howells yma'n dirprwyo ar ran Jayne Bryant, ac mae Darren Millar yma yn dirprwyo ar ran Angela Burns.

Gallaf i bellach egluro bod y cyfarfod, yn naturiol, yn ddwyieithog. Gellir defnyddio'r clustffonau i glywed cyfieithu ar y pryd o'r Gymraeg i'r Saesneg ar sianel 1, neu i glywed cyfraniadau yn yr iaith wreiddiol yn well ar sianel 2. Os bydd y larwm tân yn canu, dylid dilyn cyfarwyddiadau'r tywyswyr os bydd hynny'n digwydd. Oes gan unrhyw un unrhyw fuddiant i'w ddatgan? Nac oes. 

Welcome, all, to the latest meeting of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee here at the Senedd. Item 1 is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. May I extend a warm welcome to my fellow members of this committee, and also announce that we have received apologies from Jayne Bryant, Dawn Bowden and Angela Burns, and also Neil Hamilton? Vikki Howells is here as a substitute for Jayne Bryant, and Darren Millar is here as a substitute for Angela Burns.

May I further explain that the meeting is bilingual? You can use headphones to hear the simultaneous translation from Welsh to English on channel 1, or for amplification on channel 2. In the event of a fire alarm, directions from the ushers should be followed if that happens. Does anybody have any declarations of interest? No.

2. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gydag Arolygiaeth Gofal Iechyd Cymru
2. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with Healthcare Inspectorate Wales

Rŷn ni’n symud ymlaen, felly, i eitem 2 ac ymchwiliad y pwyllgor yma i iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu. Dyma’r sesiwn dystiolaeth gyntaf o’r dydd, gydag Arolygiaeth Gofal Iechyd Cymru. Dyma, wrth gwrs, ydy’r sesiwn dystiolaeth gyntaf yn ein hymchwiliad undydd heddiw. Trwy’r dydd fe fyddwn ni’n cymryd tystiolaeth ar lafar, megis, yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu. Felly, i’r sesiwn gyntaf yma, dwi’n falch iawn o groesawu Dr Kate Chamberlain, prif weithredwr Arolygiaeth Gofal Iechyd Cymru, a hefyd Rhys Jones, pennaeth uwch-gyfeirio a gorfodi, Arolygiaeth Gofal Iechyd Cymru.

Mi fyddwch chi’n gwybod y drefn erbyn hyn. Byddwch chi hefyd yn ymwybodol mai’r meicroffonau yn gweithio’n awtomatig. Does dim rhaid cyffwrdd â dim byd. Rydyn ni’n diolch am bob tystiolaeth ysgrifenedig rŷn ni wedi’i derbyn ymlaen llaw. Ac felly, yn ôl ein harfer, fe awn ni’n syth mewn i gwestiynau, ac mae’r cwestiynau cyntaf dan ofal Helen Mary Jones.

We'll move on, therefore, to item 2, and this committee's inquiry into mental health in the context of policing and police custody. The first evidence session of the day is with Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. This, of course, is the first evidence session in our one-day inquiry today. We will be taking oral evidence all day in the context of policing and police custody. So, in this first session, I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Kate Chamberlain, chief executive of Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, and also Rhys Jones, head of escalation and enforcement, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales.

You will know how things work by now and you'll also be aware that the microphones operate automatically. There is no need for you to touch anything. We're thankful for all the written evidence we have received beforehand and, therefore, as usual, we'll proceed straight into questions, and the first questions are from Helen Mary Jones.

Good morning. Can you explain to us the inspection arrangements between you, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons in respect of police custody suites in Wales? And were HIW inspectors participating in the inspections of police forces in 2016 and 2017?

I can. The lead organisations for these inspections are HMICFRS and HMIP, so they set their programme and we are invited to attend as an observer to those inspections. So, we have the opportunity to be there to observe first hand what they're seeing, to potentially ask any questions that we have ourselves and, basically, just to get a feel for the type of issues that might be relevant to our responsibilities on the health side rather than specifically within police custody per se. We don't always attend those. We did attend, I think, in 2014 the one in north Wales and we did attend in Gwent in 2017. So, we were observing those particular inspections. But the ability does exist in the ones that we don't go to directly for the other inspectorates to escalate any matters to us that they might want us to take on board. Typically, the individual who we would send to those inspections would be our strategic lead for mental health services, who's a registered mental health nurse and can pick up on some of the more complicated issues that might arise in those particular settings.

Additionally, it's probably worth sharing with the committee that all three of those inspectorates are also members of the national preventative mechanism for the UK, and that's actually been meeting in Wales for the last two days. So, we have active co-ordination through that.

How do you make the decision about whether you participate actively in an inspection or not? What would make you do that or what would make you not do that?

If we had concerns, that would be a driver for us to attend. If we don't have concerns, we would not want to leave it a significant period of time in any case without having been out on inspection, because we think it's important that we keep up to date with the methodology they use, the type of things they're looking for, and it gives us an opportunity to engage first hand with their inspectors to hear about what they're finding elsewhere as well.

Is there any way in which you think those inspection arrangements could be improved, or are they working reasonably well from your perspective?

From our perspective, I don't think we have any particular issues with them. We're happy to place reliance upon the work that is done by the other inspectorates where we need to, and we're happy that the communication arrangements between us are such that, if they had significant concerns, they would raise them both with us and the other bodies that they needed to.

10:05

Okay, thank you. So, can you talk us through the data in your mental health hospital, learning disability and Mental Health Act inspections annual report for 2016-17 and tell us what it tells us about the use of section 136 in Wales?

I don't have the report actually in front of me.

Headlines—in terms of section 136, there are two sources of information, really, on this. We've tended within the monitoring reports to look specifically at the Welsh Government statistical release, which looks at admissions to mental health facilities. So, I'm sure you will have seen reference to that, and we can certainly send a link to it if you haven't. There is another source of data, which is UK Government's statistics from the police, which we would also look at, certainly as part of our planning and as part of our examination of what's going on in the area, and that's the detentions under the Mental Health Act data, which is there. Just broadly, what it does show is that there does seem to be an increase in the use of section 136, but, in terms of the use of police custody as the place of safety, that does seem to have been very significantly reduced since there's been a focus upon it.

So, do we have—that's encouraging, obviously—sufficient health-based places of safety to meet demand across Wales, or are there gaps?

Before I address that, I think it is probably worth saying that, in this context, it's important to think not just about those suites, but about whether there are alternatives available to those suites, because it may be that pressure on those suites is in part due to a lack of alternatives rather than the need for more. So, the fact that there may be pressure on those services does not necessarily mean we need more of those.

There are suites in each health board. Obviously, accident and emergency is often used as an alternative where people need to be cared for by health professionals. But we have also highlighted within our inspections some issues with the use of section 136 suites. We've highlighted previously where the location of those suites may not be ideal in terms of geographical location, but also sometimes in terms of where they're located alongside mental health facilities or otherwise.

The other challenge that comes about in terms of the use of these suites is that, very often, because they're not in continuous use, their staffing may require the drawing of staff from the wards, and it may impact upon staffing levels on the wards. That, obviously, would be a concern to us. We've published our 2016-17 report. We're in the process of going through and finalising our 2017-18 report. In 17 out of the 24 inspections that we undertook in 2017-18 we did highlight difficulties with staffing levels in those mental health facilities. So, obviously, the pressure that an immediate or an emergency call may make on that staffing can be quite difficult.

Diolch yn fawr. Mae'r ddau gwestiwn nesaf dan ofal Darren Millar.

Thank you very much. Darren Millar has the next two questions.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. You just referred to the fact that you're invited to participate in the inspections that take place but that you don't always send representatives. Why don't you? Why don't you choose to participate in all of them, in order to inform better your work as the healthcare inspectorate here? I know that you're not responsible for those inspections, but there's useful information, I would assume, that you can glean about the provision of services here for people in Wales.

There is useful information, but, as I say, it's about prioritisation of the use of our capacity. The person that we would seek to send is our strategic lead for mental health. More often than not, that individual also has other responsibilities within the directorate and ultimately we don't direct the timing or the location, necessarily, of these inspections. So, we would seek to join in if and when we could, but we wouldn't always necessarily go, and that's because the nature of the relationships that we have with the other inspectorates mean that we're satisfied—we can draw assurance from the work that they're undertaking and the communication that we would have.

Okay. So, you would like to be able to make people available for each inspection, though, I assume.

I'd like to be able to do lots of things, Darren.

Yes, but essentially it's a resource issue. You'd like to send them, but you can't always have people available because of the other work priorities.

You can't always, and that's the nature of the business.

Okay. Can I ask you about the crisis mental health concordat between Welsh Government, NHS, police, the ambulance service, et cetera? There's been some talk of that perhaps being more effective in terms of the joint working here in Wales than has been the case over the border in England. Would you concur with that?

10:10

I think we have an advantage in Wales with our size. I think partnership working and thinking about things in the round is easier because we can get most of the bodies in the room to actually talk about this and think about where we want to go. I think it's positive, the health concordat there—it's obviously had an impact on the use of police custody. We look at issues relating to monitoring the concordat as part of our inspections. We don't monitor it specifically ourselves, but we do pick upon those issues and there are clearly a lot of interesting projects going on around the concordat. I'd probably say that I think that, Wales, we do have an advantage in terms of partnership working.

One of the other things that we heard from the evidence is that, in spite of that close working relationship, it's not always been perhaps achieving as much as has been the case over the border. Again, would you agree with that analysis, and, if so, why or why not?

I'll give a very personal opinion now rather than specifically a HIW evidence-based opinion, but I think one of the things we're very good at in Wales is innovative projects and pilots and trying new things. What I don't think we are as strong at is taking the learning from those pilots and projects and spreading them so that we have a consistent approach across Wales. I think that, in a way, is reflected in some of what we find within bodies as part of our inspections. We do get people that respond to our recommendations even within individual bodies, but we are not as good at sharing that learning, and I think it's a challenge for all parts of the system, actually, to think about when do we say, 'Yes, this is a good idea—this is working. We should be making sure that we scale it up and spread it everywhere' and exactly who is it that is going to hold the ring on that and make that happen. That, I think, is part of the space that the concordat certainly could be moving into in maybe a stronger way.

That's very useful. And are there any particular partners in that concordat who are less engaged than others, perhaps holding up progress?

I wouldn't have any evidence on which to draw to be able to speculate on that.

I can see the trends in terms of the reduction in those individuals who've been detained in police custody. I think one of things that alarms me in the documents and the briefings that we've received is that there is an increasing number of people who are detained in places that are not known or identified. Do we have some indication as to—I appreciate that it says 'not known' in the official statistics—what that might be?

I wouldn't be able to speculate on that personally, but I understand that the concordat is looking at the recording of data and monitoring data—

—and the collection of data. It's something that I think they are taking a better look at to see—. Because you need that information to be able to identify whether the system is working and 'not known' is never really a satisfactory response to help inform change.

So, it's on the radar with the concordat partners in terms of trying to find a solution.

Symud ymlaen nawr at wasanaethau gofal argyfwng. David Rees.

Moving on now to crisis care services. David Rees.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. A recent report on the mental health community teams clearly highlighted concerns, throughout the report, very much inconsistencies—that was used an awful lot; the term 'variability' was used an awful lot. But you also highlighted concerns over the crisis care team 24/7 service. Obviously, you've made recommendations in relation to that. What discussions have you had with the Welsh Government on those recommendations?

So, you're right there. We recently published this MHT report, in February, and you're correct to refer to the fact that we reference some concerns regarding provision for crisis care. There are a number of issues raised in the report, but I think what we were definitely finding was that there's variability across Wales in terms of availability and access of individuals into services generally, but also in terms of crisis care and support, and there are some startling numbers, certainly in the report, in terms of the surveys that we undertook and that nearly half of people didn't know who to contact during crisis, and the fact that these MHT services tend to operate to a fixed time schedule and, clearly, crises can happen any time of the day. So, we clearly feel that that's an issue and, as a consequence, raised it significantly within the report. There's a whole host of recommendations in the report, but there are some recommendations around crisis care.

We're in the process of receiving responses from all health boards and Welsh Government in relation to the recommendations raised in the report. We haven't had them all in yet; we've had an initial response from the Welsh Government. So, I'm unable to comment fully in terms of what we've reflected in terms of what we've had back—rather, that's in progress at the moment.

10:15

When would you expect all the reports from the health boards to be in by? 

We're expecting the responses in by next week. By the end of next week is what we were—.

So, by, say, after Easter you should be in a position to actually have had an opportunity to look at the responses. 

Okay. That'll be interesting—to see what they say—because they quite rightly point out that there are some deep concerns over the availability and, as you've also pointed out, information to families and carers, as well as individuals as to how they can access those services. Section 136 obviously is being used as a concept for an immediate need for care and control, yet a recent HMICFR report found that the majority of people who were actually being detained are being discharged quite quickly with no need for immediate hospital care. Have you had a chance to look at this, and have you had a chance to reflect upon perhaps why this is the case? 

Not specifically, but one of the plans that we've got in place for next year is our thematic review of crisis care. And I don't know if it would be worth—Rhys, if you'd like to explain the basis. 

Yes, certainly. Kate's right; we haven't looked at that issue. I think we are going to do a crisis care thematic this year, and I think that's, in part, born out of this MHT thematic. But I think there's been a bit of a trail that's led us to have the compelling case to do this piece of work, because we've undertaken in the last four years a review of homicide reviews that we've done in the past few years, and that highlighted some issues around crisis care. We also have a mental health stakeholder reference group and, significantly, one of the key issues that was raised by partners at that group was, again, concerns around provision in relation to crisis. And we also published a substance misuse thematic report last year which, again, tallied with some of the concerns raised in this MHT report, in that it highlighted the fact that services tended to operate to fixed time schedules, and out-of-hours provision for people experiencing crisis was poor, certainly in terms of substance misuse. But there's obviously often co-morbidity issues in terms of links into mental health with those individuals as well.

So, I think, when we put all that together, there's quite a compelling case that we need to look at crisis. It's something that we need to understand as to what are the arrangements and whether they're working, but I think also as much as anything—and I dare say section 136 suites will be part of the review—there's also something around, 'Well, actually, how are people getting into crisis in the first place? What's happening in terms of prevention issues? Can we stop people getting to the stage when they're having to call for help, in a way?'

On that basis then, clearly, and all the work that you already have done, are you confident that, in a situation where this may be happening, there's sufficient care and support in the community for those people who actually don't get that assessment, or leave assessment quite quickly? Because, as you highlighted, we are talking about vulnerable individuals who are going back into the community, and, in the reports you've done, do you have confidence that the support mechanisms are there for those individuals, who are basically on the edge of crisis? 

I think this MHT report certainly suggests that some areas are performing better than others. I think it's the variability issue that is the concern. I think certain areas have better arrangements and better provision, and I think that ultimately is why it's led us to want to do the crisis review work. I'll probably be in a better place to be able to answer that question definitively once we've done that piece of work, actually. I think this has actually stoked the interest and, really, as I said, set the chain of events that's led us to want to do this piece of work, because we want to understand why is this an issue, why is provision patchy across Wales, seemingly, why are people telling us that they don't know who to contact. So, there's something around us getting under the skin of that, and being able to understand nationally, then, what's the picture and what needs to be done.  

So, the current situation, effectively, led you to say, 'We need to do this—there's a need for this work to go on', because I will say—perhaps I would—you haven't got the confidence at this point in time that everything is in place to ensure people across Wales, no matter where they are, have that support in those circumstances. 

Absolutely. It's made us want to know more about the problem. 

Okay. And you've mentioned, obviously, homicides, and there's also the committee's recent suicide prevention report, which recommended a single point of access for specialist mental health services and that that should be implemented as quickly as possible. I'm assuming you support that recommendation.

10:20

I think this MHT report suggests that's a step in the right direction. Because of the variability of ways into services, I think single points of access allow individuals to be triaged and signposted to the appropriate services. I think what we're not necessarily also gleaning, however, is actually is that being checked to see is that working as it should and the effectiveness—is this that the way that it definitely should be happening on a national level. I think it tallies a little bit with what Kate mentioned earlier in terms of what is the way forward. We do lots of good things in pockets, but, actually, where's the endorsement, in a sense, of that national way to do things? I think whatever is deemed to be the right way to do things, what needs to happen, and again this links back to this MHT report, is that there needs to be enough awareness of that, then—people can't be falling through the gaps. I think that's part of the problem as well—both processes but awareness of the processes as well.

Okay. All these points we've been making—and we are looking very specifically at the police and police custody—clearly highlight there's an increase in pressures and demand upon the police forces in relation to mental health circumstances. So, I suppose the question is, and you've obviously looked at some of these, you've looked at some of the things in custody: are you confident that the police are using section 136 sufficiently and appropriately? Or are they being forced perhaps to use 136 more than they should be?

I'm not sure from the work that we've done we've got the evidence to form a specific view on that. I think what we are hopeful will come from the review that we're doing is to identify how we can make sure there is the right packet or package of multi-agency services to ensure that any individual gets the support that is appropriate for their needs, because it may be entirely appropriate for the police to be acting in a way to provide the immediate care and support that is needed for that individual. It may be that, having had that support, having been able to refer on then to health services for some sort of immediate care, there's not the need for ongoing care, because it's not always a mental health issue per se—it may be a mental health crisis for a whole variety of reasons, and everybody is different.

I think the real challenge for us—or the real challenge for the system—is to make sure that the different parts of the system are working in a sufficiently flexible and focused way that they can meet the needs of the individual. It's almost inevitable, I think, that the police—. The police are the first point of call, the first place in terms of patient safety. They will often be the first people on the scene where somebody is experiencing a crisis. But they need to be able to make sure that they've got both the advice that they're getting, at times, through the control room system, but also that they can refer on and access the right type of care and support for that individual. It may or may not be that, at times, they have to use section 136 to get that. I wouldn't be able to offer a view on whether that is being used for a particular purpose. 

The thematic review—. The way that we approach the work that we do is to look at it through the lens of the individual—so, what are the packages of services that are available, geared to the needs of the individual? Can they be accessed? Is it clear what they are? Are the different agencies working together in a way that actually matches what an individual needs rather than shoehorns an individual into the service that just happens to be available at that point in time?

Yes. It's slightly taking us back a little bit. As you've both referred—. Dr Chamberlain said that one of our advantages is that Wales is small so we can get people in the room, which I think—you know, in response to Darren. But then you've both touched on this sort of projectitis—that we're very good at doing good new initiatives but we're not very good at mainstreaming those. In a way, those two things, at one level, you might expect them to be contradictory, because we can get all the people in the room. Do you have any take on why it's so difficult for us to mainstream the good ideas? Because this is something that we hear in different contexts on this committee and in other parts of the Assembly's work as well, actually. What are the barriers to picking up those good ideas and running with them? You've got that look on your face that says, 'Do you want the five minutes or the full half hour?'

No, I've got the look on my face that says, 'If I had the answer to that, I think I'd already have written it up and posted it somewhere.' I don't actually know. Whether it's something about human psychology and a reluctance to pick up something and assume that it will fit; whether we sometimes, being so sensitive to our local circumstances, start from a position of, 'Yes, that's a really good idea, but here is different.'

10:25

Or 'It wouldn't work here' or 'It would work here, but, actually, we just need to—.' And there's also something about the fact that change is difficult and takes effort. So, accepting something is a good idea is not the same as saying, 'And we have the capacity to overcome that change inertia and actually bring that here.' So, it's something about how you get over that instinctive, 'It's great and we'll do it next week.' I think there's something—. It's almost a psychological problem or an organisational psychological problem.   

But—[Inaudible.]—and that's based upon—dependent upon—them taking it up themselves. Is there a lack of strong leadership at a national level to actually push it forward? That's the next question. 

Is there a lack of strong leadership? I think we have a complicated organisational map in Wales.  

We do. We have 22 local authorities that are on particular boundaries. We have health boards that are on particular boundaries, we have police forces that are on particular boundaries—all of which are trying in their way to serve their communities. But their communities are different, and it is organisational psychology and inertia. It's bringing everybody to a position that they're happy. 

Diolch, Chair. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue Services's thematic report on policing and mental health—obviously, one of the key conclusions there is that there needs to be a radical rethink and a longer term solution to what has become a national crisis with regard to policing and mental health and the amount of time it takes up. You've already touched on that in your answer to my colleague David Rees and suggested that you agree with that as a statement. But what do you think the longer term solution to that issue might be? And to what extent have you discussed this report with HMICFRS as well? 

Okay. I personally haven't discussed this report with HMICFRS. I think they're right: there does need to be—whether a fundamental rethink is right, but there certainly needs to be some focused thought about what is the appropriate range of services that need to be available to meet the needs of the population. I think there is probably a bit of work to be done, if you think about what we were saying about section 136 and whether the capacity is right. There's probably a piece of work to be done on demand—understanding the nature and location of demand and what type of demand is out there.

Having said about projectitis, there's probably a question to be asked about whether we are really looking at the possible and what's the possible in terms of whether there are other services that are being provided, maybe not just in parts of Wales, but outside of Wales. We have to be prepared to look wider. Where can individuals access support when they feel they have a crisis coming? Do they have the type of safe spaces that they can go to to get support from peers? How do we make sure those preventative services are in place? And that all plays into, therefore, conversations about, and in that context, what is the role of the police. And it can't be considered in isolation, and it's really important that it doesn't turn into a battle between one organisation saying, 'Well, it's nothing to do with us, you should be doing that', because, increasingly, the things that work best are the things that are done together and planned together. 

Okay, thank you. And, finally, you've talked about your own thematic review that you'll be launching in the new year as well, and you've discussed the reasons why you think that's necessary and some of the ideas behind that, but given the fact that this is already such a crowded field of research and the answers you've already given about projectitis, what else are you looking to bring to the table here? And how can you ensure that, whatever the recommendations that come out of your report, we can see those actually being put into practice? 

Okay. Can I just say one thing first, and then I'll handover to Rhys, which is that a number of the reports that I've seen refer to pace? And I'm keen that whatever we do, we can highlight what's going well, as well as what isn't going well. So, if we can help the various bodies that are involved in this address issues with pace in the right direction, then I think taking stock across the board would be useful, but Rhys—. 

10:30

Absolutely. I think there's a lot of interest in this area but seemingly the issues are still there. Again, one of the reasons why we felt duty-bound to do something from what we've heard, what we've listened to, what we've seen, what we've done—. I think as a consequence—as I said, there's a compelling case to look at it on a national level, to look at what's happening, what's working well, what isn't working well and to understand why as well, to get under the skin of it, as I mentioned, to understand the root cause of that issue. Is there something that needs to be done somewhere else that prevents us from getting to that stage? We're confident that it'll be an impactful piece of work. The CMHT report—people have taken note of that. In a sense, we'll be following through some of the issues from that to test whether those have had an impact as well. Likewise, with this piece of work, I think the ultimate aim is to actually understand what's the picture nationally, what needs to be done to improve things and to follow that through as well. Again, I think we clearly haven't started that yet and we'd welcome the opportunity, once we've completed that work, to come back to committee to talk to you about it as well.  

Ocê. Reit, dŷn ni allan o amser. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi am eich presenoldeb y bore yma a hefyd am ateb y cwestiynau a osodwyd gerbron. Mi fyddwch chi yn derbyn trawsgrifiad o'r drafodaeth yma er mwyn i chi allu gwirio ei fod e'n ffeithiol gywir. Gyda hynny, gallaf i ddiolch yn fawr iawn i'r ddau ohonoch chi.

Ac i fy nghyd-Aelodau, fe gawn ni doriad byr nawr i gael y tystion nesaf i mewn. So, byddwn ni nôl mewn 10 munud. Diolch yn fawr. 

Okay. Right, we're out of time. Thank you very much for your attendance this morning and also for answering the questions posed to you this morning. So, you will receive a transcript of today's proceedings in order for you to check that it is factually accurate. Thank you very much to both of you.

And to my fellow Members, we're going to break for a few minutes until the next witnesses arrive. So, we'll break for 10 minutes. Thank you. 

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:31 a 10:45.

The meeting adjourned between 10:31 and 10:45.

10:45
3. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda Chyngor Cenedlaethol Penaethiaid yr Heddlu
3. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with the National Chief Police Council

Croeso nôl i bawb i adran ddiweddaraf y Pwyllgor Iechyd, Gofal Cymdeithasol a Chwaraeon yma yn y Senedd. Dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd eitem 3 erbyn rŵan, a pharhad o'n hymchwiliad undydd ni i mewn i iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu. Y sesiwn yma ydy sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda Chyngor Cenedlaethol Penaethiaid yr Heddlu. Ac i'r perwyl yma, dwi'n falch iawn o groesawu i'r bwrdd y prif gwnstabl cynorthwyol Jonathan Drake, arweinydd rhanbarthol Cyngor Cenedlaethol Penaethiaid yr Heddlu. Croeso. Bore da i chi.

Welcome back everyone to the latest session of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee here at the Senedd. We've reached item 3 by now, and a continuation of our one-day inquiry into mental health in policing and police custody. This is an evidence session with the National Chief Police Council. And I'd like to welcome assistant chief constable Jonathan Drake, who is the regional lead for the National Police Chiefs Council. Welcome to you. Good morning.

Ac awn ni'n syth i mewn i gwestiynau. Mae yna nifer fawr o gwestiynau ar bob math o sefyllfaoedd, ac mae Vikki'n mynd i ddechrau. Vikki.

And we go straight into questions. We have several questions to ask on all kinds of situations, and Vikki will begin. Vikki.

Diolch, Chair. Good morning. So, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services question whether the police should be as frequently involved in responding to mental health problems as they currently are. So, I wonder if you could begin for us by outlining the role and responsibilities of police officers when dealing with people with mental health problems?

Yes, absolutely. So, there is a role for policing in dealing with people in mental health crisis, particularly where they present a significant risk to themselves or others. So, they're immediately going to cause harm to themselves or cause harm to the community, particularly when people are in a public place. So, there is certainly a role for policing within mental health. The challenge is that most of the cases we deal with—up to 98 per cent—don't actually result in section 136 detentions. They're much more around health and welfare concerns, but the police—we're an agency that are there 24/7, and often the first people to be phoned about issues or come across issues in the street. So, obviously, the police do have a role working with health partners. We're doing lots of work across Wales, through the mental health concordat group. But in summation, I'd say that the police, at present, are involved in too many issues that are purely health concerns, or may be linked to social care, as opposed to fitting that definition of an immediate risk to themselves or others.

I actually undertook a day out with a community policing team in my constituency in the summer, and this was an issue that was brought to my attention then, and I was quite surprised to see the amount of time that community police in particular, spend on this and particularly with the same individuals. To your mind, is there any way to break this cycle of police officers having to engage and, really, this drain on resources for the wider community, having to engage to such an extent with these sorts of people? But also, is there a way that that can be done that also safeguards the health of those people as well?

Yes, absolutely. One of the things that we do have in Wales at present, in various forms across Wales, is what we call 'mental health triage', which is community psychiatric nurses or approved mental health professionals who are based in the police control rooms or sometimes they're out on the street. And even if we receive the call, what they're able to do is help to navigate through the health system and they're able to access people's medical records as well. They're able to engage directly with that person on the phone and give them good advice, such as around medication or signposting to general practitioner or other services. So, that's a really, really important way to break the demand. My concern, if I'm honest, is that the service is really inconsistent at the moment. It's not funded consistently across Wales. So, for my own force, South Wales Police, we've got a pilot scheme that's running till September, but the police are funding that in its entirety. So, the sustainability is really questionable. I suppose, what I'd say is—I've been in Wales three years myself—many of the issues here are exactly the same as anywhere else, but I do think that we have an opportunity in Wales to be more consistent in the support that we provide, and, importantly, at that position of crisis that, actually, there's a far more consistent approach to issues such as triage.

10:50

You said there's a pilot scheme, which the police are funding. Is that pilot scheme across the whole of the south Wales area, which involves three health boards, or is it only across part of it, which would involve—?

No, it's based in our police control room and it does service the three health boards at the moment, so it took a while to set up. We're funding it ourselves. There is a proper, independent evaluation being done, which should be able to evidence the benefits. Most of the people who call us do have some form of mental health issue or complex welfare need, but the right answer to that isn't necessarily to send a couple of police officers in shiny yellow jackets.

Are you seeing differences? You've said there are inconsistencies across Wales. Are you seeing inconsistencies across the three health boards you deal with?

There is, to some extent, but I think by putting triage in—. There's always differences in terms of the provision that's available in terms of places of safety and things like that, but by having the triage team in that does mean that the advice that we get is far more consistent. Importantly, because they're health professionals giving us that advice directly, with access to medical records, that's the best possible advice that we could inherit to deal with that patient.

Thank you, Chair. A couple of questions around the use of police custody as a place of safety. Firstly, you confirmed to us in your written evidence that police custody suites are only used as a place of safety in exceptional circumstances and for adults, and that would be such as significant violence, and never for a child or young person under the age of 18. Are there any actions that are needed to ensure that this practice is fully implemented and maintained?

In all honesty, one of the significant things that has progressed is the detention of people in police custody with mental health issues. Even for as large a force as ourselves, that's into single figures for the year—you know, under 1 per cent of people would end up in police custody, and normally it's because of extreme violence or it could be that they present with something slightly different than mental health to begin with. So, it's very, very rare. 

If I'm honest, I think there will always be a very incredibly small number of people who it may be appropriate to detain in police custody. What I would say is that when people are in custody now, we do have mental health nurses who are employed not just for people who are detained under section 136, but people will be in custody for other matters with mental health issues as well. So, being able to have healthcare professionals there is really important as well.

Thank you. That brings me straight on to my next question, actually, which is around the use of health professionals when a 136 is being used. So, could you confirm to us whether access to mental health professional advice at the point of crisis is available 24/7 to police officers across all four police forces in Wales when a 136 is going to be used?

So, in theory, there should be that help available. That looks a little different in every health board, so some would have 24/7 mobile phone contacts to crisis teams, but it's not consistent. Obviously, for ourselves, we have our own triage team, which can, in turn, link into local crisis teams et cetera, but it's certainly not a consistent position. If I'm honest, that becomes more challenging the more out of hours it is and the more busy it is for other agencies as well.

Could you tell us which health boards present a particular problem in that area?

I wouldn't like to single out individual health boards, to be honest. I think my main message would be that it's inconsistent.

Okay, I think we've covered the bit about triage. Sorry, Darren wants to say something.

Yes, I just want to follow up. I think it's important to highlight where there are problems. If there are particular health boards that there are problems with, we need to understand those in order that we can pay attention to them in our work.

What I'd say is that it's too much of a generalisation to say that one health board is better than not. By 'inconsistent', what I'd say is that some areas have a very different view on, for instance, sanctuary schemes. So, in one area of our force, we've struggled to get that off the ground, whereas in another area, working with some third sector partners as well, that's something that I think will go live as well. Because, all of this, in dealing with mental health, the last resort, really, is for police officers to go in the early hours of the morning. To me, it's all about prevention and putting those steps in along the line. Whether we can get hold of mental health professionals at three in the morning is less of an issue than actually, 'Can we stop us needing to go in the first place?' There are alternative ways that that patient could be dealt with. So, it's not that I'm averse to naming and shaming; it's genuinely the fact I can't single out one health board that's got everything cracked. It's such a patchwork quilt across Wales.

Obviously, we've got the mental health concordat meeting, and each one of those meetings, it's a very engaged group, very engaged meeting, and there's always good practice being presented there, but it's not everywhere. It's always one area that's developed one particular thing. Another example would be that we're tending to convey patients in police vehicles to hospital, and that shouldn't be the case. One area has made some investment in that, and others haven't. So, again, I'd like it really consistent that we're not detaining people and then taking them in police cars off to hospital.

10:55

Okay. Could I just check—from your evidence, as regards the triage business where they've got community psychiatric nurses located in police control rooms, and the funding for that, who should pay?

I know who shouldn't pay. I don't think it should be the police, if I'm honest. We've just done some analysis in our force, looking at how police officers, response officers, are spending their time. Over half of that time now is spent on issues that you'd call 'concern for safety'. So, that's mental health, missing people, welfare concerns in the street, and that's a real challenge for us, if I'm honest, when we're trying to tackle issues like knife crime et cetera. My view is that it should be consistently funded by Welsh Government across Wales, that triage should be seen as a core building block for a consistent approach to dealing with mental health crises.

We've had, obviously, some evidence from Cardiff and Vale that suggests that, actually, this model generally helps the police more than the health service. So, on that basis, wouldn't the funding be better coming from the Home Office?

Well, I don't know whether it helps health or police more; I just think it helps the patient more, to be honest. It's all public money, at the end of the day, and taxpayers' money. I'm not too fussed how it gets carved up. Certainly, I was very willing to put our money where our mouth was and fund the pilot to get it off the ground, but, as I say, long term, a real question on that.

Yes. Just before I go onto my questions, can I just ask you—? There were some images, which were quite disturbing, on our tvs recently, about a Gypsy/Traveller lady who was arrested in her own home, taken into custody, who clearly had some mental health issues, was covered by a robe and nothing else, wasn't allowed to get any clothes. Is that the sort of way that you think the police ought to be treating people who have mental health problems in your force areas?

So, I'm not going into details around a specific case. What I'd say is that if people have any concerns about how they've been treated, there are processes that are followed to look at the police treatment. The Independent Office for Police Conduct look into any complaints against policing, and it's not for us to mark our own homework on whether we've done a good job or not with individual cases. We do have that independent oversight, which is really important. So, I'm not prepared to comment on individual cases.

Can I ask, is that typical of the way that people with mental health are treated in your force area?

I think I've just said I'm not going into individual cases—

I'm not asking you to comment on the case. I'm asking you is that the sort of way that people are generally treated?

So, what I'd say is, across our force area and across Wales, we treat everyone with the utmost respect. That there are a lot of cases we go to—people with mental health, complex needs—that we shouldn't have gone to in the first place is the bottom line. So, that's my view.

Yes. I just wanted to ask you about this general trend of increasing numbers of 136 detentions and the disparity, if you like, or the ratio of detentions in some force areas versus their populations. It seems that, in south Wales, people are less likely to be detained than they are, perhaps, in Dyfed-Powys and, indeed, in the Gwent Police area, whereas north Wales appears to be a little bit closer to your sorts of ratios. Can you explain why that might be the case?

11:00

So, clearly, there are issues around density and sparsity of population, I think, around the services that are available in individual areas. What I couldn't say is—. We follow the same legislation, we follow the same law. So, I couldn't explain why one area would have a disproportionate rate of 136 detentions to anywhere else. What I'd say, though, is that, with 136, what we have to be really careful on is, because that's a very, very easy to measure issue—probably 2 per cent of the issues that we deal with that are connected to mental health—because it's so easy to measure and so visible, I find it quite frustrating we're always focusing on section 136, whereas, actually, it's the tip of the iceberg, really. That would be my view, but I know that's also the view of health professionals as well, in truth, and we view it as a success if 136s go down and an issue if they go up, but, in actual fact, it's the tip of the iceberg. It's about looking after people at the end of the day.

You've been talking about the need for consistency, though, and the situation is clearly not consistent if you're more than four times as likely in Dyfed-Powys to be detained than you are in south Wales.

One of the issues we've certainly found through our triage team is that there are cases that not only did we not need to go to in the first place, but, actually, if we had gone, we would have made the situation worse—that, for people who are on the edge of a crisis, the thing that would make it worse is two officers in shiny yellow jackets coming. And, actually, that's the importance of that really early advice and looking at other solutions. So, what I'd say is trying to get that consistency means that we also need that consistency of support, particularly out of hours.

Yes. I'm just looking at the figures, actually. I want to correct myself for the record, if that's okay. So, the rate in south Wales and Gwent is similar, but north Wales seems to be the worst outlier. Would that be consistent with the messages that you—? In terms of your discussions around the concordat, et cetera, would north Wales be the most challenging area, perhaps?

No, not in terms of a challenging area. As I say, what I can't say is that, in terms of 136 and the numbers, I don't think that that points to a differential in service. I think that that's just how it is across Wales, and we, last year, had an increase in the number of our 136 detentions in 2018 as well. What I'll be really interested to look at is, during the duration of the triage, whether that number changes because we are doing things differently as a result of having that service.

Right, I understand. Obviously, for section 136s to be used, there's got to be an immediate need for care and control. You've referred to this already earlier, and what we understand to be the case is that people are very often discharged from custody immediately after their assessment. Are you satisfied that they're going to safe environments once they're discharged and that appropriate care is in place for them?

Frankly, I don't know. What I would say, though, is that 50 per cent of the people that we deal with are actually already patients in some form. So, I'm concerned about a revolving door. What I can't describe is whether the services that are put in place for people once they're released are sufficient and, again, whether that's consistent. I'm not an expert, but the fact that over 50 per cent of people are known would tend to point to the fact that there is repeat demand and how much of that was actually preventable.

Okay. Can I ask, in terms of the section 136s, then, whether you are finding the same people popping up again and again needing to be detained?

Yes. So, 136s and in terms of the whole issue of mental health, it tends—. Yes, there's a lot of repeat demand.

Yes. Well, it's a large number of repeats. I mean, 50 per cent of the people we deal with are people who are known already to mental health services. So, the bulk is repeat demand, yes, absolutely.

So, that would seem to suggest that they're not getting the appropriate levels of support and care in the community that they need to get in order to prevent them from getting into these sorts of situations where they're a danger to themselves or others.

11:05

Yes, absolutely, and how the most appropriate solution can still be for the police to go, as almost a sticking-plaster response.

If a person goes voluntarily into a custody situation without the use of your powers, then there's not always a requirement for police officers to continue to remain present in that situation, is there? Do you just want to explain what the implications of that are for the police?

Yes. There is a dilemma here. People can go voluntarily to places of safety, and they can be accompanied by us—again, voluntarily—and the police officer could walk away, then, when that person has been accepted by the place of safety. The real challenge for us in practical, operational terms is, if that person then chooses, again voluntarily, to leave and wander off, just how worried we are about their safety. Are they then a missing person that we need to invest a lot of time and effort in to find? So, just because someone is voluntary doesn't necessarily mean that we're happy to leave them. And again, we do need, in those cases, often, a 'phone a friend', which would be, for me, at the moment, our triage team to help give us guidance on whether it's safe to leave that person there. And, you know, I totally understand as well that there's a contradiction in terms when someone is actually in a place of safety voluntarily. We should be fine to leave them, but the bottom line is that the primary duty of the police is to protect life. We always have that as a concern, and we are worried about leaving people.

I suppose you've got competing interests. You need to release your resources for other response jobs, or whatever it might be, so there's that incentive to get away as quickly as you can, however you've also got this competing priority of keeping the public safe.

Absolutely, yes. So, it is difficult. There's no easy solution with it, and easy solutions to complex problems seldom work, but I do think there's some low-hanging fruit out there. I keep going on about triage, because I think that's one of them. I think mental health sanctuaries are another, where people who need some help and need some support—. Crisis cafes and things like that, which do exist in pockets, are really, really helpful. But, the real challenge, when we detain people—. We've looked at our average time of sitting with people we detain and it is three and a half hours. So, that's a long time. It's not just the number of incidents, it's the time. And, of course, it's unplanned as well, so if you've got a shift of a couple of people, that could take up a huge amount.

In terms of reporting, obviously, the focus tends to be on the section 136s. If you were looking at the number of individuals that those 136s related to, you're suggesting that it's a much smaller number.

It would be a smaller number, yes.

Yes, absolutely. We have frequent user data. We have numbers of 136s, and we've done deep dives in relation to mental health. We did 24 hours in the life of mental health across Wales. So, we have done lots of data and analysis, but frankly, I think we're beyond that now; we should be into solutions, and consistent ones at that.

Thank you. The mental health Act code of practice for Wales—the guidance says that, in relation to the use of detention under sections 135 and 136, health and local authority partners must ensure that there's adequate provision of facilities and places of safety for young people and for adults. From the police service's perspective, are there enough health-based places of safety to meet demand across Wales?

I think it varies—that's the truth. And I hate to say this, but when I come here and I talk on behalf of Wales, the truth is that it's a big area and it does vary greatly. I think in my own force, we're quite well provisioned, if I'm honest, in south Wales. We're a more tight geographic area with a higher population and so I do think there's an availability of places of safety. One of the things we've done as well is masses of training for staff, in powers but also knowledge around where those places of safety are—you know, opening hours, and lots of relationship building. We employ mental health liaison officers as well so that they really know how to access places of safety and build up trust and relationships with the health staff who are there. But it is very variable, particularly in rural areas and out-of-hours as well. That's a real challenge for some of my colleagues across Wales. 

11:10

So, if it's more of an issue, for example, in rural areas, would that suggest that those patients are more likely to end up in your custody because there's no alternative? Well, I won't say 'custody'—looked after in a police station.

The figures aren't bearing that out. If I'm honest, at the moment, in terms of people ending up in custody, I think what it may result in is people sat in police cars for a lot longer or involved in longer transport. I think that's probably how it would manifest. 

That makes sense. You referred in one of your earlier answers to some of the work that's going on involving the third sector in terms of developing alternative places of safety, like sanctuary houses. Can you tell us a little bit about that? That sounds as if there are some potential good practice examples that we could draw attention to.

Certainly. So, in various areas, those already exist. Parts of Dyfed-Powys, for instance, already have that. We're looking to develop a sanctuary at Swansea at the moment, again, working with third sector partners in doing that. Sometimes, there's opportunities there such as buildings that aren't used—public buildings but they're not used out of hours. So, in an evening they could be used to convert into a sanctuary or crisis cafe. I guess one of the challenges with those arrangements is that you know how many people go there; it's quite difficult to say what would have happened if that hadn't been there. So, prevention is always quite difficult to—

No, often not. But just from a common sense point of view, it seems right that if the choice at 8 p.m. at night is phoning the police or, actually, there's somewhere you know you can go with some medical expertise, with some advice around health, social needs, and really friendly people who are trained in caring for people with mental health concerns—that's surely got to be better. 

It's obvious from the patient and family point of view. Nobody really wants to have to call the police in that situation, do they?

Just to move off to a slightly different area, do we need greater clarity on where the assessment of intoxicated individuals can safely take place in health-based settings and make sure their needs are appropriately met? Do you find yourselves—? You know, is that a situation where your officers are ending up having to stay with somebody because, perhaps, the health professionals don't feel safe with that individual?

Yes. So, there is an issue about intoxication. It's never—. Quite often, it's not a precise science as to how someone's behaving—is it because of drink, drugs or mental health issues. So, it is quite a challenge, and I understand that. In effect, there are occasions when we do end up sitting with people for longer because they're intoxicated and so they can't have an assessment, depending on what state they're in, or maybe presenting more violently. So, that is a challenge, but I suppose it's a red herring that people can't go to a health-based place of safety if they're in some way intoxicated, because particularly, again, with access to medical records and knowledge about the individual, and some healthcare advice, even if someone has had drink or either taken or not taken medication, that's not a reason not to take them in the first place.

Diolch, Gadeirydd. In your written evidence, you didn't identify the number of young people who might be given section 136 or 135 orders. I appreciate the question wasn't asked, but could you, perhaps, provide the committee with details as to the numbers across Wales that fall under that category?

I can provide it. I haven't got those figures here, if I'm honest. It wasn't within my evidence that I prepared today, but I'm really happy to present it. It's very, very small numbers. Again, what I'd say is that I'm very optimistic about the work that's going on with the Early Action Together ACEs programme—adverse childhood experiences programme—because I do think that that's work, again, that is very preventative and would help prevent some of that crisis. So, obviously, in Wales as well we've put a strong investment in neighbourhood policing in police community support officers. We've got the safer schools programme as well. So, there's lots and lots of work going on with young people here, which is quite unique to Wales, I think, and certainly I'm really proud of that work that's going on.  

11:15

That would be very helpful. And if you could actually break it up into under-18s and under-16s as well, so we can see how people fit in to that. But, linked into that, obviously, there are many young people who are on the edge of that vulnerability who may not be considered in need of a section 135, but are on the cliff edge of one, we would say, and I want to have an understanding of what practices the police have for working with other services when it comes across in such individuals to ensure that those young people don't end up having to have an order placed upon them, but that we are are actually able to support them.

Yes. We do. What I would say—. I'm sorry, I haven't got the figures with me. But in terms of the volume of young people that we are responding to with mental health issues, that's a very, very small number compared—

I'm sorry, I can't—. I wouldn't like to nail my colours to the mast on that in terms of numbers, but I know it's incredibly small. And I have given evidence to a specific inquiry about CAMHS as well here.

Okay. Hafal indicates that, despite improvements in the police management of vulnerable people in custody, there still are inconsistencies, which I think you've accepted. And it's not uncommon to find people in custody with obvious mental health problems—I think that's the important thing—who have not had appropriate adults requested by custody staff, nor engagement with mental health staff or other services. Now, this is definitely a policing issue, in one sense. What moves are you taking within the policing section to ensure that that sort of inconsistency is removed?

Yes. I dispute that there's inconsistency, if I'm honest. When people are presented in custody, there's a very, very detailed assessment of them that's undertaken by the custody sergeant, which very much looks at mental health issues, and as I've said already, within our force, we also have mental health professionals who work within custody suites as well, to assist—

There is some mental health service. It looks a little bit different in each area. Each area commissions services slightly differently. But there is access to some mental health support, certainly. I think that when you look to all the research, there is a challenge, isn't there, around the representation of people with mental health issues within the criminal justice system, in truth, but in terms of them getting that support and considering that as an issue, asking for appropriate adults, I've not seen evidence that that isn't happening. If in any doubt at all, we would always ask for an appropriate adult.

Because in your own paper, you simply say,

'Of note, is that there appears to be a service gap in respect of the assessment of persons in police custody who have been arrested for a criminal offence.'

Which is slightly different, because they don't come in on the basis of mental health issues—it's criminal offences.

Yes. So, the challenge—. Again, this is an area where we're inconsistent. It's not a challenge with our health boards in south Wales. So, they will attend if someone's in custody for a criminal matter. They'd still attend and assess them, if appropriate, for mental health issues. Elsewhere, there is a challenge if people are in custody for a Police and Criminal Evidence Act matter—for a criminal matter—in actually securing attendance. So, there are issues in there where section 136 has been used after release for the criminal matter but it's been necessary to detain people for their mental health, which is obviously not right at all.

So, the consistency would be—. As I say, certainly in south Wales now, health boards will send staff on the incredibly rare occasions that we'd need to still consider detaining people post release for the criminal matter.

So, effectively, therefore, I can assume that you are confident that, in the south Wales area, which is clearly where there are more professionals in the custody suites, there is prompt identification of individuals with mental health crises once they're in custody, but you may not be confident that that's consistent across Wales at this point in time.

Yes, that would be a fair summary.

11:20

Okay. On section 136s, obviously, we know very well that measures are all about trying to ensure they're transferred to a safe place as soon as possible via safe means. I know that the concordat says to avoid police vehicles as much as possible, but the evidence we've received shows there's still a large majority of those still being transferred by police vehicles.

How are you working with other organisations and other sectors to try and change things, so that you're not using your police vehicles in those circumstances? There are other services. Now, I appreciate there's pressure upon Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, because if I had WAST in front of me now, they'd be saying, 'You know the pressures.' But how are you working with other services outside of WAST, in that sense, to look at how you can transfer people to those safe places, not necessarily in police vehicles?

So, the bottom line with it: in practical terms, the reason why we primarily take people in police cars, and it's unusual that people detained don't travel in police cars, in truth, is simply because of delays in waiting for WAST. It would be a significant delay, and there's a delay because of how busy they are, and, in truth, if you were to triage a call, if someone was suffering a medical emergency versus a case of transport, I can see why there's a real challenge there and a wait.

There have been trials of alternative patient transport by individual health boards, specifically for people with mental health concerns, and, likewise, also, street triage may include the ability to take people then to a health-based place of safety. I say it again, it's not consistent, it's not reliable, and certainly today, if you look across Wales, anyone detained is most likely to end up travelling in a police car. Frankly, I don't think it's for policing to invest in an alternative transport arrangement, and that's not something that we're looking to do at present, so we are where we are.

No, I appreciate that. But, therefore, the default at the moment is WAST, but there are pilots in some areas that might look at how health boards are accessing that.

Yes, absolutely so. I said about the concordat meeting, again, there are examples of good practice and initiatives that are piloted, and it's fantastic to hear about them, but they don't seem to then roll out everywhere. They seem to be in individual areas, and, to me, that's such a shame. We should be in a position now where we've got a really consistent operating model, and there'll always be challenges around geography and rurality, but that basic principle that, if you need detaining under section 136, there's a high chance that the police wouldn't have gone in the first place, because we'd have had the triage and that direct link to other mental health services, but if you did end up in that, that actually you'd get transported in a more dignified way than in the back of a police car.

You've just mentioned something that HIW mentioned earlier, which is that there are good practices being put in place, but they're not being shared out. Perhaps you might want to answer this one, then: do you think there needs to be stronger leadership, perhaps from Welsh Government, as to how we can take these good practices and, basically, roll them out across Wales?

Can I just ask you—? You've sort of touched on this already, in terms of the fact that the concordat doesn't actually specify who pays for some of the work that is being done, and how the police take the view that, really, they're plugging holes in, essentially, the problems of the NHS, because of a lack of care and support around some of these individuals, particularly those that are presenting on multiple occasions. So, given that that is the position of the police, what discussions have there been with health partners about them, perhaps on a voluntary basis, helping to pool some of their budgets with the police in order to make things work better? And what direction or sense of leadership is there from the Welsh Government in terms of accepting some responsibility for some of these problems in the system, if we can call them that, so that we can actually knuckle down and crack them together?

So, it's fair to say that in each local area, there are significant efforts made with individual health boards and consequently that's why we end up with pockets of good practice in areas. What we haven't got is that consistent approach everywhere, so that's the part that we need to, I think, work towards, to be perfectly honest. So, at the moment we have to convince each individual health board something's a good idea, and then there has to be the funding there to actually fund it. Obviously, that's often in competition with other areas of funding. I do understand all that, and I also understand funding pressures as well, but I think, comparatively, a lot of these solutions are quite simple and low cost. You know, the sanctuary model that we're looking at is under £100,000 for the year.

11:25

Well, no, that would be for one sanctuary to operate. But in the grand scale of things, that's quite small money, and even our own triage is actually quite low cost when you look at the number of issues that it could help resolve. I suppose I would say this because, obviously, I cover Wales for mental health, but it would be really good if there was just one consistent approach, based on the things that we know work. I think a lot of that identification is being done through the concordat group, but then beyond evaluation actually making things happen is what I'd really like to accelerate now.  

It sounds to me that you know what works, you've got some ideas of the costs if that were to be rolled out Wales wide. If those costs aren't prohibitive—. You've talked about £100,000 for one sanctuary model. Wales wide, you have some sort of idea, I assume. What sort of costs are we talking about? 

Well, it would be several million for all of Wales, but if you were to concentrate those in the urban areas, a couple of million would certainly make a difference, wouldn't it? 

So, if you focused it on where the demand is greatest, you'd make an immediate and significant impact for a couple of million pounds. 

Exactly, and in terms of mental health triage, again, under £2.5 million would put in a consistent service across Wales. So, when you look at that compared to other budgets, it's quite a small amount of money. The question is: who pays? How should it be collected? And then that causes delay, but the bottom thing is that it's the right thing to do. Now, I'm not saying from policing—I'm just saying for the patient that's the bottom line. 

Obviously, the NHS budget is many billions of pounds each year; I'm not quite sure what the total sum of it is in the current financial year, but it's many, many billions of pounds. So, for the sake of £5 million, you could plug the major urban areas and deal with this issue of triage on a national basis with a joined-up approach across the country. 

Yes, I'm just thinking about those costs and the balance of costs. I suppose this is an impossible question to answer, but you must be—the police service across the whole of Wales—must be spending huge amounts of money in terms of officers' time. And I suppose it would be wonderful to be able to quantify that, but I guess you could quantify that for the 136s, couldn't you, because you know how many there are and so you could average out the amount of time each one would take. But I suppose with all the informal interventions, it wouldn't be possible to have a clue. I'm just thinking about when we're making the case to Ministers that they need to spend more money, it can be handy if we can show where there might be savings in other parts of the public purse, because as you said earlier, it's all taxpayers' money in the end, even though it comes to us through different sources.

We do have some approximation of costs. Again, primarily, that's based on our day in the life study of mental health demand. So, we do have some ideas of costs. But, again, prevention is a difficult one. That's why the triage we have got is going to be subject to evaluation. We funded it because we thought, actually—

It would save resources. 

We do a back-to-the-floor approach with our staff, and we go out, spend a lot of time on patrol, understanding the challenges facing operational policing, and for two years running they were saying, 'We've still got the same issue with dealing with mental health.' There are lots of other things that have moved on. There are things like how we share intelligence with partners, respond to drugs warrants, stop and search—loads of clarity on the things that we have control on, but the mental health issue is still exactly the same issue as it was a couple of years ago. That's why we've put the triage in in south Wales to make a difference as soon as possible. So, that's why we've done it. 

Obviously, who funds it is a big question, because policing is currently funded by the Home Office and the health service is currently funded by the Welsh Government. So, who funds it is a big question and I don't want to get you into that situation, but have you got examples—? Take England for example, have you seen any examples in England where something similar works and there are funding streams that are identified?

11:30

Absolutely. So, we were quite unusual not to have a form of triage in south Wales for so long. Again, it's inconsistent across England as well, who funds, whether it's health boards, whether it's a combination of funding—

No, and for a while, there was money through the police transformation fund, when it was a fairly new initiative as well. So, again, it's quite different. Approach this with a sense of optimism. I've worked 30 years in the police, 27 of them in England. I think we're in a position to lead the way in Wales, as we're doing so many things. So, I don't approach this glass half empty; this is a chance to nail it really, really well for the benefit of our public in Wales. 

Yes, just building on that really and looking forward. In their written evidence to us the Police Federation has called for the mental health crisis care concordat to be put on a statutory basis. I was wondering what your view would be of that. And more broadly, are there areas of legislation that need to be amended that would help you in dealing with mental health crisis situations? Or is it about—[Inaudible.]—or is it not the law and is it more about practice and—?

Generally, I think the mental health crisis care concordat is really helpful. I think it has brought all of the partners around the table. Honestly, I don't think the answer is more legislation, and I'd be quite concerned as well if we put anything on hold, waiting for more legislation and that that was the gap. I think there's plenty there now to get on with to be perfectly honest. So, I wouldn't object to the legislation, there's no reason not to do it, but let's be honest, that's not what the block is now.

Okay, thank you, that's helpful. So, if legislation doesn't need to be changed or it's not going to make a difference—I have to be careful not to put words in your mouth there. But are there any changes that could be made to existing operating structures that might prevent the risk of criminalising people who present with mental health problems? Is there anything structurally that needs to be done or is it again this consistent approach, and—?

Yes, it's a consistent approach. I describe it as moving from concordat to operating model. That would be what I'd say. So, based on the things that we know that work, there's one consistent operating model in Wales. Yes, it's slightly different in each area, but that's because of geographic difference, but you can recognise absolutely from the way that dealing with mental health occurs that that's part of one joined-up system, and it doesn't matter where you go. I think that's the step change that we now need to make.

Ocê, pawb yn hapus? Dyna ni, dyna ddiwedd y sesiwn a diwedd y cwestiynau. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi. Diolch am eich presenoldeb—

Okay, all content? There we are, that's the end of the session and the end of the questions. Thank you very much to you and thank you for attending—

Just one point to finish on. Clearly, we've been talking about the role of the police and custody in policing, but I suppose I want to ask the question of: when they leave police custody, and because you've got people on site and everything, how do they work with the other services to ensure that vulnerable people are supported as best as they can be to ensure they are supported in the community? So, what's the process from the point when they leave your care to going back into the community, where they can also make sure there's access to them? Because one of the concerns we have is that when people leave, what are they going to?

Yes, well, as I describe there, within our own custody, we have mental health professionals who are able to give some of that signposting, so that's one of the things. But, in truth, when people are released, they're released, so the police role with those individuals will cease. So, we may information share—.

One of the other things that I should have mentioned earlier, I'm sorry, is in terms of the way that we share information and help to protect people longer term. One of the key ways we do that is through a multi-agency safeguarding hub or MASH, or an equivalent model—they might be called something else. But, again, that's something that varies very much across Wales. I think having that structure, where people whose job it is to safeguard are working together, sharing information, and have information systems that enable them to do that is very, very important indeed, as well, I think, in terms of that ongoing support and care, but importantly knowledge as well and knowledge sharing. I think MASH is very, very important and, again, that would be as part of the building blocks to preventing harm in all its forms—mental health is just one element, but preventing harm in all its forms. MASH is another area I think I'd be really, really keen to see as a consistent approach across Wales. We have a working group ongoing at the moment in relation to that.

11:35

From that, I assume it's not consistent across Wales at this point in time.

Ocê. Dyna'r diwedd. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi. Diolch am eich presenoldeb. Diolch am y dystiolaeth ysgrifenedig. Mi fyddwch chi'n derbyn trawsgrifiad o'r trafodaethau yma er mwyn i chi allu gwirio eu bod nhw'n ffeithiol gywir. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi. 

Okay. We have come to the end. Thank you very much. Thank you for attending and thank you for your written evidence. You will receive a transcript of the proceedings so that you can check them for factual accuracy. Thank you very much to you.

Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you very much.

I fy nghyd-Aelodau, fe gawn ni doriad nawr, ac mae'r tystion nesaf yma am 12.30 p.m.. Diolch yn fawr.

To my fellow Members, we'll have a break now, and the next witnesses will be here at 12.30 p.m.. Thank you.

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 11:36 a 12:31.

The meeting adjourned between 11:36 and 12:31.

12:30

Ailymgynullodd y pwyllgor yn gyhoeddus am 12:31.

The committee reconvened in public at 12:31.

Croeso yn ôl i bawb i adran y prynhawn o gyfarfod y Pwyllgor Iechyd, Gofal Cymdeithasol a Chwaraeon yma yn y Senedd. 

Welcome back all to this afternoon's section of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee meeting here in the Senedd. 

4. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda chynrychiolwyr y Byrddau Iechyd Lleol
4. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with representatives of Local Health Boards

Dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd eitem 4 erbyn rŵan, a pharhad o'n hymchwiliad undydd ni mewn i iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa'r heddlu. Dyma sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda chynrychiolwyr y byrddau iechyd lleol, a dŷn ni'n falch iawn i'ch croesawu at y bwrdd. Dŷn ni hefyd yn ddiolchgar am y dystiolaeth ysgrifenedig dŷch chi wedi'i chyflwyno ymlaen llaw, ac, fel dwi wedi crybwyll eisoes, hon ydy'r drydedd sesiwn ar y pwnc yma heddiw.

Felly, dwi'n falch iawn i groesawu i'r bwrdd, Richard Jones, pennaeth strategaeth ac arloesi clinigol, Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Hywel Dda; Ian Wile, cyfarwyddwr gweithrediadau ar gyfer iechyd meddwl, Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Caerdydd a'r Fro; Philip Lewis, pennaeth nyrsio iechyd meddwl, Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Cwm Taf Morgannwg—ein bwrdd iechyd newydd ni, ie, da iawn; a Dr Chris O'Connor, seicolegydd clinigol ymgynghorol a'r cyfarwyddwr adrannol ar gyfer iechyd meddwl ac anableddau dysgu, Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Aneurin Bevan. Croeso i chi i gyd. 

Ac, yn ôl ein harfer, mae amser ychydig bach yn dynn. Mae yna nifer helaeth o gwestiynau i'w gofyn. Felly, awn ni'n syth mewn i gwestiynu, ac mae'r cwestiynnau cyntaf o dan ofal Vikki Howells. 

We have reached item 4 now, and this is a continuation of our one-day inquiry into mental health in the policing and police custody. This is the evidence session with representatives from the local health boards, and we're very pleased to welcome you to the table. We're also grateful to you for the written evidence that you have submitted beforehand, and, as I've already said, this is the third session on this subject today. 

So, I'm very pleased to welcome to the table, Richard Jones, head of clinical innovation and strategy, Hywel Dda University Health Board; Ian Wile, director of operations for mental health, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board; Philip Lewis, head of mental health nursing, Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board—our new health board, yes, very good; and Dr Chris O'Connor, consultant clinical psychologist and the divisional director for mental health and learning disabilities, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. Welcome to you all. 

And, as usual, time is a little tight. There are a number of questions to be asked. So, we'll go straight into questioning, and the first questions are from Vikki Howells. 

Diolch, Chair. Health boards have identified a need for a common understanding of mental health issues. How important do you think it is that there's a shared language and understanding of mental health crisis or mental ill health among partners? 

I think, from my perspective, it's actually really important, because I think, in terms of being able to support people who have a mental health difficulty who experience a crisis, it actually needs a partnership approach. So, actually, all partners having a common understanding about defining mental health and what mental health distress is I think is really important, because if we don't have that common language, we could be talking about different people. And I think, for me, there's a range of interventions that we need to be able to offer people. So, we need to have a good understanding about the needs of an individual, before we can think about what sorts of services we need to be commissioning for individuals and who should be the appropriate agency to support people. 

If I could add to that as well, I totally agree with what Chris is saying. But I think also we have to be very careful that the language that the police will use is that, often, 40 per cent, 50 per cent of their work is to do with 'mental health'. I think we have to be careful what that means in reality. This is often people in mental health distress, mental health crises, emotional crises, rather than core mental health business. And I'm not saying it should either be one or the other, but we just need to be careful that we understand that the reference by the police is much broader than some of the services that we have. 

12:35

Thank you. So, moving on to crisis prevention, then, and a question for you, Philip Lewis, in the written evidence, Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board made the case for further work to reduce the number of people whose mental health deteriorates to the point at which they need a crisis assessment. So, what action do you think is required to reduce the number of people whose mental health problems escalate to that point? 

I guess it's a whole-system change that ultimately needs to happen. This pervades every aspect of life. Whether this is child and adolescent services, education services, primary mental health care services, which are often dealing with people's resilience and emotional stability, to try and create an environment where we don't see people going into distress in the way that we see under police contact, because the idea is that we should be able to get our interventions in much earlier than that. Very often, what we end up doing is putting people through distressing pathways to end up in the right service. If we could get those services at the front much better—. I'm not sure I've got any particular solutions at the moment, but I think that's clearly the message. There are lots of people who are heading to a distressing situation, and you feel there could have been other mechanisms ahead of an event that results in a police contact. 

I think this is a key area for a partnership approach. As people have been saying, we've come through a system, as the mental health services have grown over the years, of very much a specialist mental illness support provision. I think, as the definition of mental health and mental distress broadens, I think there's an onus then on a range of partners to provide services to support people with those almost degrees of mental distress and mental ill health. I think it's fair to say that all the health boards are trying in some way to take that responsibility seriously and try to reach further into things like general practice, with primary care services, and to organise our commissioning of third sector organisations as well, which are usually really flexible and competent in looking after people and have good, open access support for people who are in mental distress or social and well-being distress who present often in crisis situations. So, although probably there needs to be a more co-ordinated partnership approach, I think all the agencies at the moment are trying to do that. I think the concordat is probably a good example of one of the inter-agency initiatives that's helping. When we talk across Wales about developing services, we are talking about reaching in and offering our partnership perspective and our partnership support to people with a range of mental health problems now. 

You've led straight into what was my second question there because I was going to ask about what kind of engagement you'd all like to see from GPs and local primary care mental health support services. I don't know if anyone else wants to comment on that. 

It's a huge task at hand for us. So, at Hywel Dda we've just gone through three plus years of engagement and public consultation in redesigning our mental health services. A key part of that is reducing the level of mental distress, increasing accessibility to services 24/7, even in rural areas like ours. That does rely on excellent working relationships with the third sector and a range of key partners as well. We are implementing that in a fully co-produced approach with all our key stakeholders, service users, carers and the third sector. But we clearly need to invest more heavily in the third sector. Our plan is to have easily accessible, 24/7 drop in centres in each of our counties. We would like them fronted by the third sector, to put in services that prevent crises from happening in the first place. That's where the real investment needs to go. I don't think we should be investing necessarily in traditional, secondary mental health services, police and social workers et cetera. That's dealing with the symptoms rather than the cause. We need more investment to deal with the cause of the problems and prevent these crises happening, which very often are socially related.  

I would agree with that. I think that most health boards are starting to see a shift of resources away from the secondary care, traditional model more into the primary care, early intervention, short-term intervention. I understand the problem—wading, ourselves, through a myriad of assessments, but actually getting to work with people as quickly as possible—. You've done that in Cardiff with some GP work.

12:40

Yes, we've been quite lucky in Cardiff. We've had investment from the health board around GP sustainability more than anything else, because of the high numbers of people with complex mental health problems that GPs are dealing with as part of their day-to-day caseloads. We've had support to invest in mental health practitioners, who are supported by the third sector, to be working in practices and working to the GP model where you'll see people as part of appointment slots through the day, and these are people who are referred into the practitioners service from the GPs.

Some of the results have been fairly astounding really, in seeing people earlier and then people not then having to be referred through the myriad of more complex, specialist services that often people are, because the GPs haven't got any other choice. And again, we've been really lucky that the health board now is going to roll that out right across Cardiff and the Vale with an expanded third sector contract to support that as well. So, we're keen, along with other models being tested around Wales—

And other areas have got really good practice as well that they can show the rest of Wales. But we're keen to share the results of that as well with the rest of Wales, just to support—

Yes. What we're hearing about prevention is very encouraging, but one of the ways that you could divert people out of these situations would—. Just to roll back a bit, we've had evidence from the police service, we've had evidence from academics, showing that between 50 and 60 per cent of people who end up with a section 136—so these are people who are very ill indeed—are already known to mental health services, and in one particular academic study, only one of those people actually had a care and treatment plan. Now, surely, one of the ways that you could be preventing people getting into these situations is ensuring that those people who are already known to you are not in what the senior police officer described to us as a sort of revolving door, because they're not getting the mental health treatment they need. We're not talking here about people who are distressed or intoxicated who, quite rightly, you could argue shouldn't be the responsibility of mental health services; we're talking about people here who are really poorly, and they are repeatedly presenting with crises. What more could be done to ensure that those people with identified needs are actually getting those needs met? Because that's part of prevention as well, in terms of preventing them getting into crisis situations.

I think, we're potentially talking about a range of people, and without having seen that exact study, I couldn't comment precisely on that. Anyone in receipt of care from statutory mental health services will have a care and treatment plan, and that will include a crisis and contingency plan that will identify, in collaboration with that individual and their carer, exactly what steps would help them alleviate a crisis and what they could do about it rather than finding themselves in positions where they do end up with the police. There are a certain range of conditions, particularly those people who have more difficulty managing their emotions, that do end up in repeat crises, and those—

Surely, people with mental health problems can be expected to have a bit of difficulty managing their emotions. I'm not very comfortable with the responsibility being put back on the patient there.

I'm not suggesting that at all in any way, but there are a particular group of patients where they do have a particular sets of issues, where they're more likely to come in contact with the police, for example, and that's where we do try to have frequent, multi-agency planning meetings so we can have a co-ordinated response and an appropriate plan of care for them under the circumstances. It's not always possible to eliminate that entirely, and I'm sure there's more work that can be done in and around that, but, certainly, increased multi-agency, co-operative working and planning around that is very important to us.

I think, as we said earlier—. Let's take Cardiff, for example, we've got about 5,000 people that we support on our combined caseload just in secondary mental health care, and if we rolled out this primary care model, we could be coming into contact with over 100,000 people a year. So, the likelihood of somebody going into crisis that we wouldn't have been prepared for, that is a likely scenario.

But what we're talking about is building up an infrastructure within the community—not just from mental health services, but with the third sector, the local authority—where you have social and well-being hubs. You can have well-being advisers, social prescribing, et cetera, which often then divert people away towards more meaningful activities, which then prevent people from going into crisis. I think if we just rely on the resource that's only in the mental health service, I think we're going to be struggling to deal with what are often very complex problems around accommodation, having a meaningful day, et cetera. So, I think we're trying to play our part in expanding that infrastructure in the community to support people out of hours when people do feel as if they're going into crisis. For example, we have third sector contracts with organisations like Mind and the 4Winds in Cardiff, which do offer support out of hours, where people can be contacted to have a befriending service just to talk people through a crisis, rather than needing, specifically, a mental health service or a police officer to support them. So, we are trying to do that and trying to build up that infrastructure of support, but we've got a little way to go as well.

12:45

One final question from me, talking about building a broader support network. We've taken evidence from the Welsh Local Government Association, and that highlighted the importance for families of being able to know who to contact if they want to support a loved one when they're on that brink of possibly going into a mental health crisis. So, what can be done by mental health services to ensure that those kinds of contacts are out there for families and carers of people with mental health problems, who may be best placed to actually put in place that support if they're able to, before the individual is, perhaps, at that point?

I fully agree with you: I think it's really important, whether it's the individual who's trying to access support or the people around them, it's absolutely vital that people are able to access that support. We've been doing a lot of work within Gwent recently, talking and listening to people who are trying to access support and their families. One of the key things that comes up is that perspective around families, who know the individual best, often finding it very difficult to access support when required.

So, we're just starting to do a piece of work at the moment in Gwent that we're describing as developing a single point of contact for individuals that would be accessible for individuals themselves, family members or professionals to be able to access support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to be able to have a meaningful conversation with somebody who can help think about the best way to support that person at that point in time. So, I think there's more we need to do. That would be my sense.

I'd echo that as well from a Hywel Dda perspective. That's one of the things we heard clearly through our public consultation: people wanted a single point of contact. It's a challenge to develop, because we have three local authorities, all of whom are developing a single point of contact, and we have NHS 111, so, potentially, you can see that we've got more than half a dozen single points of contact sprouting up. So, as we're in the implementation phase now, we're working very closely with the local authority to try to align everything that we have, because what the public told us was that they want one single easy-to-remember number, a bit like 333, that they can ring up from anywhere, whoever they are, and be directed through to somebody with local knowledge and understanding of mental health problems.

Thank you, Chair. I'm listening to your points, and I'm just rewinding my mind back to the Healthcare Inspectorate Wales report on community mental health teams and the inconsistency that was highlighted. Perhaps I'm not talking to the right people, in one sense, here, because I should perhaps be talking to the chief executives and chairs to ask them the question. There's inconsistency, but there's also some good practice—you mentioned some good practice this afternoon. I just don't understand why you're not sharing that good practice across all boards.

What I was trying to work out was why, if one—you say you're looking at what goes on there, but there are other examples being given to us of good practice that doesn't seem to be shared. The point you've made about the single point of contact—well, that was, again, highlighted in the report from HIW. These things seem to be happening bit by bit, rather than as a collective. Why aren't we getting a collective approach, a leadership approach, to say, 'This is the best way forward, let's all do it'?

It's interesting, because although we've all taken our own unique approaches towards developing mental health services, if you put us all together in a room and talked about the types of service we're developing, we're all in absolute agreement on what our priorities are and where we need to make the investment. So, the interesting thing that's come through our discussions together is that we all agree that there's an increasing demand on well-being, maintaining well-being and reducing mental distress, and that we need to invest more in our primary care services and third sector services. I'm sure you see the nodding heads next to me—we're all agreeing with that.

So, despite that apparent lack of a co-ordinated approach, when we go to the national crisis care concordat assurance group, we find that we're all speaking the same language and trying to develop the same sorts of service, albeit in slightly different ways, which is really helpful to us, because we can get feedback from each other on how well each branch of a service is developing. So, for example, I'm currently replicating that primary care pilot that Ian instigated in Cardiff and Vale. We've all got—

We've been doing the same things ourselves, and I guess the reason I know about that is because we have mental health leaders' collaborative meetings, where I heard Ian present on the project that was done in Cardiff, and I guess that's where we share ideas and information and evaluations, and then we have to think about the context of our own relationship with our local authorities, our own geographical challenges and the various other things, then. So, I guess there are variations on the model, but I agree with Richard: in principle, I think we're all trying to do the same thing. I think the direction of travel is fairly unified.

12:50

It's good to hear that, but the evidence we've had to date, and obviously the evidence that we've received today, and the HIW report didn't say the same thing. So, that's something for you to think about. They also highlighted the concerns over the 24/7 crisis pathways. They do also vary. I'm just asking: where are we now in ensuring that your health boards—you can't answer for other health boards, I appreciate that—are actually delivering a 24/7 crisis pathway in these circumstances?

Cwm Taf has been fortunate. We've had a 24-hour crisis service for a number of years. In fact, it's probably six or seven plus years where we've had 24-hour access for people in crisis.

Yes, it's the same in Cardiff. We've got two 24-hour crisis teams.

Same in Hywel Dda. However, again, that's dealing with the symptoms of the issues rather than the causes, which is why we're so keen to develop these 24/7 drop-in services again, to help prevent people from reaching that.

I appreciate that, but we have a situation where we have to look after the people today as well.

Within Gwent, our crisis resolution home treatment teams, at the moment they finish at 10 p.m. at night, but in terms of an out-of-hours assessment, we have an admissions ward on the Talygarn site, where individuals would be assessed.

We're perhaps slowly identifying some of the boards that haven't got it, as well, as a consequence. You also talked about, in your paper, the triage model. We've had reference to that by the police this morning. That seems to be very effective. Do you think that is something that should be rolled out across Wales, and do you believe there's strong enough leadership for delivering this across Wales? I know Cardiff and Vale and Cwm Taf have probably been involved in this with South Wales Police.

I think the work in South Wales Police has had good leadership from the three health boards and from the police, and that has, I think, underpinned a strong model, which, in its infancy at the moment, is working really well. We'll await formal evaluation and we're going out to tender for evaluation of the project, but the early indications are that it has been very successful. As part of that, we looked at what was happening in Aneurin Bevan and the work they were doing in police call centres, and also there's been some success in Devon and Cornwall with their police triage system, and some of our teams went down to look at that. So, I think we spent a good bit of time analysing the data, trying to understand what the demand was, so that we had a real strong sense of what this model was about and what it could do. As I said, it's very early days at the moment, and it would be interesting to see how that evaluation plays out, because we only went live in the middle of January or at the end of January. But the early indications are that there's plenty of work, plenty of contact.

It's a nine-month project, with the evaluation starting, I think it's on month four, looking retrospectively, then, at all the data.

And if that evaluation identifies that this is a good scheme, would you expect strong leadership from the Welsh Government to ensure that there is a consistent approach across Wales?

I think if the scheme works and it's making a difference to people's lives and how we manage the service, then we have to do what we can to make that happen.

There are different approaches across Wales. So, Dyfed-Powys and Hywel Dda did set up a triage scheme well over three years ago—I think it's approaching four years ago now—and that was a slightly different model, where we have a mental health practitioner and a police officer on duty, and they're able to go out and travel to anywhere they need to, as well as being based in a force control centre. The anecdotal evidence back from officers in the force is that it's excellent—they love it. They're absolutely relieved to know that the triage team is on, and it now runs seven evenings a week. In terms of outcomes, that's very difficult to predict. The use of section 136 went up year on year after triage was established. If you look nationally at evaluations of triage services, there are all sorts of different models. They've not been evaluated terribly well. It's very difficult for us to say which is the best triage model to adopt and whether it has any impact on mental health services as a whole. The evidence that we have is that it's appreciated, well received, people like it. But has it made a distinct impact on people's lives? That's one thing we haven't unpicked with the evidence yet. So, the evidence is still in its infancy with triage models, I'm afraid, other than it provides a lot of reassurance to a lot of people.

12:55

So, you've got a triage model—but with somebody who may go out with officers?

They have their own van. It's unmarked, and they can go out to wherever they're needed, yes. 

That's Dyfed. We run it in Dyfed. 

Yes. Hywel Dda only covers Dyfed, unfortunately.

In Gwent, our mental health practitioners are based in the police control room, and that service is operational seven days a week. I think, as colleagues have said, actually, police colleagues particularly think it's a very valued service, and I think that opportunity for police officers to get advice and support on the spot immediately in terms of thinking about the best way to support an individual—they find it incredibly helpful. Interestingly in terms of some of the data, there's been no impact on the number of section 136 assessments in Gwent since that service has been in place, but Gwent Police colleagues would describe a reduction in the number of times that they need to deploy police officers out to the scene. So, I think that's interesting. In relation to the Gwent model, that's currently being evaluated independently by Swansea University, and I think police colleagues are expecting that evaluation in the next couple of months, so it would be really useful to look at that. 

So, we could end up with three different evaluations by the end of the year, basically. Maybe a fourth if north Wales is doing one. Okay.

Section 136—obviously the definition is that it should be used for people in immediate need of care and control. That's fair. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services actually did a report on mental health and policing and found that the majority of people detained are actually discharged following assessment with no need for immediate hospital care. Now, I accept there's possibly a definition of 'immediate' and that could span a short space of time, but why do you think the case is that a lot of these assessments under section 136 are actually identifying that, actually, once they've done the assessment, they don't need to be admitted, they don't need to have hospital care—they are actually being discharged back to the community? And I suppose the question will be: have you got any views as to what type of support must be in place and how that works to ensure that when they go back to the community they don't end up back in the same situation, maybe even possibly the following day?

We looked at this a couple of years ago when we spotted that trend in the Hywel Dda figures in Dyfed. So, we took a sample, and we looked back through those, and although people weren't being directly admitted to hospital care, many of those people had needs. So, you couldn't identify that there was an inappropriate use of section 136 by officers in Dyfed Powys. There were genuine reasons why they had used section 136, and many of those people went on to receive other forms of support that they needed. Again, that leads me back to an awful lot of what we need to be doing today, which is to prevent people getting into crisis in the first place. Future investment, I feel, really needs to focus on how we prevent crises from happening, rather than, again, trying to deal with the symptoms.

Just building on Richard's point, in terms of the Gwent data, if we look at the last two years, 44 per cent of individuals who were assessed were admitted following discharge. Thirty-nine per cent of individuals aren't admitted, but they have some sort of follow-up plan. That might be support from community mental health team or third sector, et cetera. And only 17 per cent of individuals who were assessed were discharged with no follow-up plan. Richard, on your point in relation to other options to support people, I think one of the areas that we're thinking quite carefully around is the provision of sanctuary support. Actually, there are a number of models within the UK where they've established really strong sanctuary provision, and some of the evaluations of those services show a real impact on the demand and individuals presenting to emergency services such as A&E and the police. So, that's something where we're really keen to try and work with the third sector locally about how we can deliver that service. 

So that there's a coherence across the health boards in Wales and we're all planning the same sorts of services.

And can I just finally—? Obviously, going back into the community is important; the support provided and advice given is crucial. Earlier on, you all said that people are told about what advice they can get and where they can find that support, and yet the HIW report published two months ago now—less than two months ago—stated quite clearly that a large proportion weren't aware of the support they could get and the access and who to contact out of hours. Are we now making strides towards ensuring that everybody is informed, that the out-of-hours contact details, everybody—that the family are informed? Because, again, a large proportion of family members were not involved in those discussions. So, are we now in the process of making sure that that is happening?

13:00

I believe that was part of the outcome of the community mental health team HIW review, where they reviewed the quality of care and treatment plans, because the number of care and treatment plans is very highly complete. But the quality issues are something that has concerned all health boards, I think, over the past three or four years since the implementation of the Measure. I think we're all taking steps to implement greater service user and carer involvement in helping us to improve the quality of our care and treatment planning—routine audits, taking feedback from those routine audits back into clinical practice and having very clear assurance plans about how that's influencing the quality of care and treatment plans we're producing. It's an onerous task when you're dealing with a directorate, even just in Hywel Dda, of 1,000 staff, but it's something that we're very, very keen to prioritise. We need to make those care and treatment plans—the quality of those care and treatment plans—far better, more meaningful for our service users and carers.

I appreciate the quality, because it is about the involvement of the carers and the individuals themselves to ensure that everyone's aware of what that care plan is. So, I appreciate the quality, but it is crucial, on your preventative agenda, to get that right.

Ocê. Symud ymlaen nawr i fannau diogel yn seiliedig ar iechyd, ac mae yna gwestiynau gyda Helen Mary Jones.

Okay. Moving on now to health-based places of safety, and these questions are from Helen Mary Jones.

Diolch, Dai. Obviously, you're all very well aware that, to adhere to the Mental Health Act 1983 code of practice for Wales guidance in relation to the use of powers of detention under sections 135 and 136, health and local authority partners have a duty to ensure that there's an adequate provision of places of safety, both for adults and for young people. Are there enough health-based places of safety across Wales?

In Hywel Dda, we have three places of safety designated for adults. Each of those is attached to one of our in-patient units. We have a dedicated children and young persons place of safety as well, in a separate in-patient unit, or attached to it. We're very, very conscious we don't currently have an identified place of safety in Aberystwyth, and we're working very hard to put one back in. We intend to do so this year when we increase the hours of one of our community mental health teams to 24 hours. Under the changes to the mental health Act, implemented by the Policing and Crime Act 2017, anywhere can be a place of safety, and I think there's a lot more scope to work within that. Our future plans are, and will be, to have non-health-based places of safety available in each locality as well. So, if you had a lower level of need, we would like people to travel less far and be seen more locally, and be looked after not necessarily in austere, perhaps, clinical places, but in more welcoming, friendly environments, leading back to a hospitality notion, as well, and places of sanctuary.

If I can make a comment from Cwm Taf's point of view, we certainly have a place of safety. I think the picture is changing somewhat since we built ours about 10 years ago, and what we are seeing more and more is a complex mixture of people who are in emotional mental health distress, unfortunately often with alcohol involvement, drug involvement. So, the complexity of their care prior to undertaking an assessment has changed somewhat in the sense that we might have facilities, but we haven't necessarily staffed those areas to deal with a complex mixture of intoxication, potential violence and aggression. And that has a huge impact on our interface with our police colleagues, because they're often better equipped to deal with that level of violence and aggression. Sometimes, that's very short lived and things will settle down, and that often leads to a different outcome at the end of assessment to the point of arrest under 136, for example.

So, I think there's a challenge for us, not just in terms of the facilities and the buildings, which are reasonable and improving, but in how we staff those. And is that a health board, a regional—? How could that look in terms of demand and capacity? There are issues like that. I know there was some work done in the concordat to think about how we could better provide facilities where the police are not spending inordinate amounts of time waiting for someone to be sober, to be at a level where it's safe for a mental health nurse to manage that situation, which is often difficult, given there will be other crisis work going on that's involving the staff. We hear that quite a lot across our health board colleagues; that's a similar pattern, I think that's fair to say.

We don't have the geographical challenges that somewhere like Hywel Dda has, so we have one place of safety that we're lucky enough to have—a new unit at Hafan y Coed. We built it to the spec that we felt was safe and appropriate. But similar to Richard, we've got concerns about the clinical environment there and having a very clinical environment for people who may not have been expecting to be conveyed to somewhere like that for an assessment. So, we're considering alternative places of safety as well. But yes, the same sort of thing.

13:05

In Gwent, we've got one place of safety and we feel that that's able to meet demand, but very similar issues to colleagues—picking up in terms of how it could be a more friendly environment, but also picking up on Phil's point; since the introduction of the policing and crime Act, we have seen a change in the presentation of individuals to our place of safety. So, significantly more individuals are engaging in significant aggressive behaviour and intoxication, so we're doing a piece of work now thinking about what we need to do in terms of changing the skill mix of staff. We've already put in temporary additional staff to be able to ensure that we can safely support people in that provision.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. So, for each of your health boards, when demand for access to the health-based place of safety exceeds capacity—and that must happen sometimes, because this is unpredictable, the demand—are you satisfied that there are adequate escalation arrangements in place so that we don't end up with police custody as a default option?

The evidence we have is that we had one detention to police custody in 2018, and that was deemed appropriate. So, with the three, plus the children and young persons places of safety, it would be very rare that all three were in use. It can happen. We have very clear escalation procedures identified between us and the police and we have very clear ways of notifying each other where there may be an issue with the assessment facility—for example, 'There's somebody in that one'. So, we'll alert people, the duty advanced mental health practitioner and police officers to let them know and they can divert people to the next one along. So, to date, we've been rather fortunate; we've managed to consume our own smoke with the three places of safety that we currently have.

In Cardiff, we have less than one a day, so the demand hasn't reached—

That's right. And looking back at the 136s that were assessed in the police station over the last year, there's been one or fewer per quarter and they've all been appropriate as well, because of the level of challenging behaviour that people have presented with.

I'm not concerned about the demand. Certainly, in terms of custody, we've had none in 2017-18 where we've assessed in custody. I have to say that that is because there is a very strong agreement between South Wales Police and Cwm Taf—and I'm not sure exactly what the agreements with the other health boards are—in the sense that there's a clear escalation process in terms of managing people who are violent, for example, and good working relationships, in the main, where they will remain—which affords us then being able to keep the people in a health board place of safety rather than traditionally what we would've done a few years ago, which is use the custody. So, there's a lot of strong inter-organisational work to make that happen.

In Gwent, approximately 12 months ago, when the police and crime Act was being introduced, we thought that there was a hypothesis that there could be more people who were requiring the health-based place of safety. So, at that point in time, we created an additional waiting area, because I guess we were very keen to get a sense of what would be the demand coming through. And what we found in the 15 months is that there have been less than 20 occasions when we've required use of the health-based place of safety when there's already been somebody in there, but it's been possible to support people within the waiting area. But I think, for us, it's something that we continue to monitor. If we do need to think about developing further places of safety, we will need to do that.

Thank you. You've partly, I think, answered this, but in each of your health boards, are accident and emergency departments classed as, or used as, places of safety? No? That's good. I'm just quickly looking ahead—you've touched, I think, on the issue about when you've got people who are very heavily intoxicated and also that can sometimes contribute to very aggressive behaviours and things that are quite difficult for health staff to manage. Can you say a bit more across the health boards about what you're doing to ensure that those patients can be safely managed in those health settings, and, where possible—although it may not always be possible—have we got the appropriate levels of staffing so that you don't necessarily need a police officer to be sitting there until the person's behaviour has de-escalated for whatever reason? I think you, Mr Lewis, touched on that—that you were reviewing your staffing to see whether you had got people in place and to look at what those higher levels of need might be.

Yes. I think it's fair to say, from Cwm Taf's perspective, that as it stands at the moment, if we had someone who was presenting with challenging behaviour, we would struggle to manage that. Fortunately, one of our places of safety, and the one that we all defer to by night, is based alongside wards, so there are numerous links to further staff to support that. But we have to recognise as well that those staff have got patients on wards, of course.

The difficulty is that the demand coming through the door—and these aren't huge numbers, to be frank, and the numbers that need high levels of interventions in terms of intoxication or even violence and aggression—these aren't massive numbers. So, we aren't staffed to manage that, and, typically, you would need at least four staff on duty, because any restraint in mental health would require three people to partake, and you would always want one spare person in case things escalated further. So, we're not in a position to staff a crisis suite there, and I guess there's an interesting argument around that sort of demand and capacity: on a more regional basis, does that make that fit that model, whilst introducing the logistics of travel, of course, to all this? It's a difficult balance, and I know those were some of the conversations that were had as part of the concordat work around what could or would a regional kind of approach be for this, where police could drop people off, knowing that, in terms of violence and aggression, it could be managed; in terms of safe detoxification, that could also be managed.

13:10

I think I can answer that in the case of what's happening now and what's happening in the next two to three years. So, for now, of course, we have three separate places of safety. They are staffed by regular ward staff. We do have an additional staff member on each ward to manage the 136 facility, but, as Phil correctly identifies, if somebody comes in with serious needs, we wouldn't want them going to police custody, we'd want them in a health-based place of safety, and we work co-operatively with our police partners there, so they will stay with us until we can have sufficient staffing in place for them to be released, and we prioritise that as soon as we can.

In terms of the future model, when we have our community mental health centres fully developed—and our new central assessment unit will be the first part of the new development built—that will have a special dedicated section 136 facility. That will be staffed adequately to manage people with more acute needs, and then the plan is for the three community mental health centres that have a non-health-based place of safety—they will be available more locally to manage the lesser needs. So, we thought of that in terms of our future planning.

In Cardiff, we're lucky enough to have all our acute services on one site, and the 136 suite is co-located with our crisis ward and our crisis services, so we can draw on 19 wards that we've got there for staffing. So, we don't need to put extra staff on, and it's quite rare, as well, so—.

So, our place of safety is next door to one of our acute wards, but I think, as I mentioned, in terms of the changing nature of presentation of individuals, we have temporarily increased staffing levels within the 136 suite whilst we do a more comprehensive review, because I think it's absolutely essential, isn't it, that individuals who are being assessed and staff are safe. We do have a very good relationship, actually, with Gwent Police, and, actually, those sorts of occasions, you absolutely see people working together across agencies to make sure the situation is safe for everybody.

Thanks for that. If we could look, then, at transporting issues, and, of course, that's more of a challenge for Dyfed and Powys than it might be for Cardiff, without wanting to make any assumptions, but the concordat states that NHS transport or other vehicles should be being used to transport people in this situation, but the evidence is suggesting that that's not happening and that most people are still being transported in police vehicles. So, I can see you're all acknowledging that that's the case. What plans have you got in place to begin to address this? It is a huge challenge, and it's obviously more of a challenge for the more rural health boards, but it's also not appropriate, is it?

We recognise that it's a huge—it's an enormous challenge for us. What we find is that, being such a large geographical area, we have issues with advanced mental health practitioners making their assessments and needing to find transport to transport someone to hospital, and great difficulty in accessing WAST in a timely fashion for that. Police officers, similarly. They could be in St David's, and, even if we had a transport service that was based in Carmarthen, it's going to prove most likely better for the person at the centre of it all to be transported by police, rather than wait for a transport service to arrive from wherever it arrives from. So, there's a bit of quid pro quo within all of this, but we recognise we need to have a far, far better transport solution.  It was clearly called out by the public in our transforming mental health consultation as well, and we have a work stream dedicated to enhancing our transport provision. This year we're setting up a pilot service that will be based out of Llanelli initially, working alongside a commissioned drop-in service in Llanelli town centre, because part of the problem we have is we haven't accurately mapped our transport need. We simply don't know what the real demand is out of hours, and that's been very difficult to gather. So, the first task of the transport service will be mapping what the demand really is in out-of-hours transport service. I suspect it's not that frequent, but when it happens it's really urgent and necessary. So, with the mapping we can do from that, that'll help us plan what we need to provide over the coming two to three years. So, we should be in a position to evaluate that pilot towards the end of the year, as we get six months of data coming in.

13:15

Yes, we've got similar problems as described in Cardiff as well—WAST are having real difficulty in responding to the prompt nature of our conveyancing needs when people are detained in the community and then need to come into hospital. So, we're going through the data collection phase at the moment, and it seems like a daily occurrence that this is happening, although it's very difficult to predict at what time of the day or night that could happen. So, at the moment, if there are time lapses that cause us great concern, then we privately book the transport then to bring individuals in, to avoid police transportation, but we would like to get to a position where we've got a contract now with a provider and we're working with our transport department to try and choose the best way to do that—whether it's not for profit or a private provider, et cetera—and what's going to be the safest and the most cost-effective way of doing that from an accredited transport provider as well. So, we're looking at that at the moment, but it's currently a risk for us.

We're very similar to that position Ian describes in Cardiff. We're over-heavily reliant on the police because the response time of WAST doesn't meet the need. We are exploring St John's Ambulance, who we have a contract with, to do other conveyancing, not linked necessarily to 136. So, if someone is assessed as needing admission in the north team of our patch, where the beds are at the south end of the patch, they will do that conveyance, unless there are particular risks, in which case we'd ask the police. So, we're trying to think about imposing that model across 136. It's in its consideration stage at the moment, but we well recognise it and it's covered across all our agendas of Mental Health Act work—the conveyancing remains a massive challenge for us.

I think in Gwent we absolutely recognise the challenges other people describe in terms of conveyancing. So, in April 2017 we took a decision to invest in a conveyancing service, so we explored the various options. Ian's described some of them, and the decision that we made at that time was to invest in our own service, so, actually, we've employed just over five workers who are based in one of our in-patient services, and we have a vehicle that is there and it is available.

Interestingly, in terms of the data, we have about 100 requests per month to be able to access that conveyancing service. We use it in many more ways than just in relation to conveyancing people around—crisis assessment—feedback from stakeholders is really, really positive and it's making a significant reduction in the number of times that police are needing to convey people.

We mentioned the ambulance trust. The ambulance trust, in their written evidence to us, have called for a single—you know, one national crisis care model, with some local flexibility, to address the challenges around transporting people with mental health crisis. Ian, would you have a view on that? Would that be helpful?

I'm not quite sure what they mean either, but that's what they've told us. So, just to explore a bit whether there would be one agreement with the ambulance trust around what their responsibilities are around this.

Any system that deploys skilled staff to situations that they're going to be more familiar with, I suppose, and conveys people safely and in a timely way would be helpful, and, if that suggestion meets those criteria, then we'd be really supportive of that. I think there are various schemes happening around Wales. I know in Cardiff we've got a diversion scheme with the ambulance service where they can divert people from A&E into the mental health service if it's safe and they're known to us. So, we try and do our best to divert people in that way, but, from a purely conveyancing point of view, if it meets those criteria, that would be really welcome.

Ocê. Unrhyw gwestiynau eraill? Na. Dyna ddiwedd y sesiwn. Diolch yn fawr iawn ichi. Diolch am y papurau ymlaen llaw hefyd, a diolch am fod yma brynhawn yma. Gaf i bellach gadarnhau eich bod chi'n mynd i dderbyn trawsgrifiad o'r trafodaethau yma er mwyn ichi hefyd gallu gwirio eu bod nhw'n ffeithiol gywir? Diolch yn fawr iawn ichi. Diolch yn fawr.

Gaf i gyhoeddi i'm cyd-Aelodau cawn ni doriad tan y tystion nesaf? Byddwn ni nôl mewn 10 munud. 

Okay. Any other questions? No. Well, that is the end of the session. Thank you very much. Thank you for the papers beforehand as well, and for your attendance this afternoon. May I let you know that you'll get a transcript of the discussions to check them for factual accuracy? So, thank you very much.

May I just announce that we'll take a break until the next witnesses? We will be back in 10 minutes.

13:20

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 13:20 ac 13:30.

The meeting adjourned between 13:20 and 13:30.

13:30
5. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda Chadeirydd Grwp Sicrwydd Concordat Gofal Mewn Argyfwng Iechyd Meddwl
5. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with the Chair of the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordant Assurance Group

Croeso yn ôl i bawb. Dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd eitem 5 ar agenda y Pwyllgor iechyd, Gofal Cymdeithasol a Chwaraeon yma yn y Senedd. Eitem 5, wrth gwrs, ydy parhad o'n hymchwiliad un dydd ni i mewn i iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa yr heddlu. Dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd rŵan sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda chadeirydd grŵp sicrwydd y concordat gofal mewn argyfwng iechyd meddwl, sydd yn glamp o deitl, mae'n rhaid i fi ei ddweud, ond dwi'n falch iawn o groesawu i'r bwrdd felly, Sara Moseley, cadeirydd grŵp sicrwydd y concordat gofal mewn argyfwng iechyd meddwl. Dŷn ni'n ddiolchgar iawn am eich presenoldeb, yn y lle cyntaf, a hefyd am y ddarpariaeth o dystiolaeth ysgrifenedig ymlaen llaw. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi am hwnna. 

Ac, yn seiliedig ar hwnna, ac ar dystiolaeth ysgrifenedig arall—llond llwyth ohono fe, i ddweud y gwir—mae gyda ni restr o gwestiynau i'w gofyn, ac wedyn, fel sy'n draddodiadol yn y pwyllgor yma, awn ni'n syth mewn i gwestiynu felly. Mae Vikki Howells yn mynd i ofyn y cwestiynau cyntaf. Vikki. 

Welcome back, all. We've reached item 5 on the agenda of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee that's meeting in the Senedd today. Item 5, of course, is a continuation of our one-day inquiry into mental health in policing and police custody. We've now reached the evidence session with the chair of the mental health crisis concordat assurance group, which, I must say, is a great title, but I'm very pleased to welcome to the table, Sara Moseley, chair of the mental health crisis concordat assurance group. We're very grateful to you for attending, in the first instance, and also for providing us with written evidence in advance. Thank you very much for that. 

And, on the basis of that, and on the basis of other written evidence—a great load of it, actually—we have a list of questions to ask, and then, as is traditional in this committee, we'll go straight into questions. Vikki Howells has the first questions. Vikki. 

Diolch, Chair. And, as the Chair has just introduced you, you are the chair of the concordat assurance group that reports directly to the Minister for Health and Social Services, but also the chair of the Wales Alliance of Mental Health too. How difficult is it for you to balance those two roles and responsibilities? 

Well, the alliance is a coming together of the national mental health charities in Wales. We come together voluntarily and share what we know our beneficiaries feel is most important and most urgent for them in terms of changing the environment, improving the environment. And one of our priorities was very much crisis care, because people were telling us that the actual experience during crisis could be almost as damaging and distressing as the illness itself, and, in particular, being detained within a police cell and receiving focus there, as opposed to having the right kind of treatment early, was extremely distressing in a number of cases. 

Mind, and a number of other organisations, held a series of inquiries with people who were experiencing this kind of thing and, over time, we developed the idea of a concordat. It was a really positive thing that so many people came together in Wales and felt that sense of having to do something about the experience that people were having. 

So, the idea then of chairing that concordat assurance group was very much based on the fact that we were there on behalf of beneficiaries. We were there on behalf of the individuals who were experiencing a mental health crisis and we weren't one of the agencies—if you like—who were involved in the delivery. And, therefore, I was in a position to be able to step back from that and bring everybody together in a constructive way to think about what we could do to improve the situation for people in Wales. 

That's really useful, thank you. How effective do you feel the current governance arrangements are around implementation and assurance work in regard to the crisis care concordat and the delivery plan? 

The governance arrangements—. You may be aware that there have been two lots of the assurance group meetings. So, what happened was that the concordat was signed right at the end of 2015, and we had an 18-month task and finish group, which was essentially to make sure that the concordat was bedded in and that we made real progress against the priorities. And we were deliberately really focused in what we were doing so that we could reduce the number of people who were going. So, there are over I think about 550 people who were in mental health crisis and detained in police stations when we started, and there's been a 90 per cent reduction in those numbers. There were 16 children, including a 12-year-old, and now there are none. 

So, we were able to make significant progress on that part of the concordat. And we were able to create, I think, an atmosphere where people were able to learn and talk about things that were quite tricky and difficult without finger pointing, and I think that's why the concordat membership wanted to restart, because they felt that, without that focus, it was pretty tricky to keep going on that path. And the assurance mechanisms are really using what's there already.  So, we didn't try and invent a whole new beast. We used the regional mental health and criminal justice partnership board, because they were there already, and we used the national board to feed into that and to learn, and then provide assurance in a written format on a six-monthly basis to the Minister. 

So I think the mechanisms for assurance are really clear and, in fact, we weren't able to provide assurance in one case recently around south Wales. We reported that to the Minister, and I think that action was taken off the back of that to bring people together. So I think the potential is there for assurance. I think it would be really helpful if those six-monthly reports were published so that the reports are available for everybody and we shine the light of day on what is actually going on. 

13:35

You said that you thought that action was taken as a result of you highlighting that. How sure can you be? There seems, perhaps, a little lack of clarity there. We'd all like to think that there is direct dialogue.

Well, I think we have to wait and see, because I think one of the issues that we've got in relation to assurance and to seeing progress is the outcome information for the individuals themselves. So, do we know, for instance, how crisis is averted in the first place? Do we know what the experience of crisis care has been for the individual, and do we know what happens to the individual after they've been through crisis? So, within the implementation plan as we have it here, we've added, this time around, improving the data and the intelligence around what happens to the individual. So, until we have that information, obviously we can't be completely assured of what's going on. And that information is really important on a regional basis, between partners, and then it's important to bring that together so it gives us a picture across Wales.

Thank you for clarifying that. You talked about a regional basis there. Could you confirm for us whether regional action plans have been published and are being reported on for each area?

The national framework for setting up the regional action plans this time around is relatively new. They have been reported on to the assurance group. I don't think that they have been published individually. 

Mae'r cwestiynau nesaf o dan ofal Helen Mary Jones.

The next questions are from Helen Mary Jones.

You mentioned in one of your replies to Vikki Howells that we've seen this really significant reduction in the use of police custody as a place of safety, which is obviously really good—it's a really good thing. Is that attributable, do you think, to the concordat? Do you think that we can make that direct link?

Well, it's co-occurrent, so, insofar as we can make a direct link, it looks that way. It was certainly the case that there was focused attention on that right from the start. And I think it's one of the areas in the concordat where you can measure progress. There are other areas in the concordat where it's more difficult to see exactly what's happening, but with those sets of figures, because they're gathered sequentially over time and published, you can see what's happening a bit clearer. 

Thank you. You'll know that Her Majesty's Inspectorate for Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services described the concordat as an excellent first step, but also went on to state that, while partnership working is better, it's not necessarily delivering better outcomes. Do you think that's an accurate assessment, or is it, again, that we need more—[Inaudible.]? 

Well, I think it comes back to this issue of visibility and transparency of outcomes for the individual, because, for me, outcomes means what happens to people. So, I couldn't say whether that statement is right or wrong because we are not sure, and I think it's very important that we hear the voices of individuals and those around them in terms of what happens, and there are a number of opportunities to do that through things like care and treatment plans, and advocacy services, and so on. So, there's the potential to do that, but we don't have that at the moment. 

13:40

So, you'd say there's the potential to do that, which is helpful, but is there a plan to get it done, and if there isn't, how could one be put in place and whose responsibility ought it to be to make sure that it happens? 

The plan is for a national core mental health data set, which is another one of the Wales Alliance for Mental Health's real priorities. If we had two main priorities, they would be it. There are two aspects to that data set. One is demographic and service level data, but the other is outcome data for the individuals, and looking quite holistically at whether people are better, are they in work, do they have a community around them. So, looking at life outcomes. And I think that it's really important that there's pace behind the development and delivery of that data set, and that it is then regularly published so we know what's happening. And also I think, within the plan, the regional groups, working together across agencies, themselves should take ownership of understanding what their beneficiaries' experience is, as an absolute way of improving and knowing what they're doing.

You mentioned pace in your answer about the data set, and I think, if I'm right, that we're not expected now to have that complete until 2022. Not wishing to put words in your mouth, but obviously we will be making recommendations as a result of this inquiry, would it be your assessment that that ought to be done faster, if at all possible? 

I think there are parts of the data that are available, and I don't see any reason why some of that couldn't be published in a digestible and accessible format earlier than that.

That's helpful, thank you. To turn back to the concordat itself, do you think it's ambitious enough? 

I reread the concordat last night, and I reminded myself that, actually, we had some core principles in there that were really ambitious and quite wide-ranging principles, starting with prevention, looking at what happens during crisis and then what happens after crisis. It's focused, because this is about crisis care, not about the whole of mental health care, so it's not about boiling the ocean. It is focused on preventing that real moment of worst distress and crisis, and dealing with that. But I think it is an ambitious document, and I think the fact that so many people have signed it up to it is very hopeful. So, the issue is implementation, and where we are with the concordat assurance group now is that I think there will be a shift in the chairing of that concordat group, so that that shifts into the health service in order to provide more focus on that implementation. 

Thank you. Thinking about the enforceability or otherwise of the concordat, the police federation in their evidence to us suggested that it ought to be put on a statutory basis. The cross-party group on policing here in the Assembly thinks there's a need for greater central leadership from Welsh Government to accelerate the process of implementation. How would you react to those two suggestions? 

I think, in terms of legislation, we have quite a progressive set of legislative levers in Wales, and I think that the mental health Measure provides a lot of the elements that we would need to achieve improvement in this area. If there are very specific suggestions around legislation, then it would be very interesting to know what they might be, but I can't see how the concordat in its entirety could be legislated for. And if you look at the implementation plan, what we've been careful to do at every step of the way is to link each point to either existing legislation or existing strategies or plans so that we're maximising the potential to use what we've got. 

13:45

And in terms of stronger leadership, central leadership from Welsh Government?

I think that would be helpful in terms of driving the delivery of this, ensuring that there is accountability and transparency, investing in those areas we've identified as being areas that could be really quite transformational in this space and in making it clear, as is being done, that this is a priority.

Ocê. Mae'r cwestiynau nesaf ar wasanaethau iechyd meddwl gofal argyfwng brys, ac mae David Rees yn mynd i'w gofyn nhw.

Okay. The next questions are on urgent crisis care mental health services, and David Rees will ask them.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. The concordat obviously focuses on crisis care, and we've seen from the HIW report that there are concerns over 24/7 care, although, listening to the health boards, prior to you, they don't seem to think there is a problem with 24/7 care. But do you think that the concordat is actually being undermined by a lack of 24/7 care—and crisis care we're talking about here?

I think what people tell us is that it's really difficult to know where to go when you're in crisis, and it's really difficult if you're a parent or a carer or a relative to know where to turn to a lot of the time. And I think we've got quite a lot of evidence for that now. So, from the perspective of the individual, I think access is really key. 

Can I just ask—? There's a difference between not knowing where to go and it not being available.

And it not being available, yes. So, I think there are gaps—there are definitely gaps. So, a lot of what you may have heard today is about people who maybe are ill enough to go into hospital, or people who really need to be in a police cell. There's a massive amount in between that.

So, of the individuals who are referred under sections 136 and 135, I think only about 20 per cent of them are then referred on to in-patient care. That doesn't mean that only 20 per cent of them need help and support. So, I think there's a lot of work to do to try and work out what is going on for the other 80 per cent. I don't think it means that they don't have any needs and that they're not in crisis; it's just that there are other things. So, it may be lower level mental health problems, it may be social issues and distress relating to those things, it may be around substance misuse. And I think there's a whole chunk in the middle that is not necessarily captured by those two ends of the spectrum. 

We know, for instance, that there isn't enough provision of community-based mental health services from the third sector, for instance, which are in people's communities, easily accessible, flexible and there for people to go to. We know that, unless you are either extremely ill or have broken the law, it's really hard to know where to go and where to get help. 

So, of that 80 per cent, I'm trying to work out—. In your view, are they being given guidance or being directed to where they can find support? Do we have data as to—

We don't know. We certainly don't know. Somebody may have the data, but I certainly don't know where that data is or whether that exists. Of course, we're looking quite narrowly here at 135 and 136, but that's just a little sliver of the need for help. 

But what's important—and the health boards talked an awful lot about prevention—when someone is discharged following a section 136, is that the direction of advice and the indication as to where you can get that support is a preventative measure, because you can stop someone from coming back into the system.

13:50

Yes, it absolutely is. So, if you're an in-patient, you should have a care and treatment plan and that should detail some of those things. As we know from the delivery unit report, it doesn't always do that, but if you're discharged without a care and treatment plan—.

Okay. Do you think the concordat, therefore, has enough sufficient indication or emphasis on prevention? Because, obviously, it deals with crisis care, but is there sufficient focus on prevention, and particularly working with the GPs and the local teams to ensure that we can address some of these issues and avoid people coming in, so it's a preventative agenda?

The emphasis in the concordat is around making sure that people know where to go when they start to become unwell and when they feel that their mental health is really deteriorating rapidly—that's what's in the concordat—and that there is a broad enough range of options for people to meet their needs.

Can I ask another question, then? I understand that, which is a preventative approach—

Which is a preventative approach, yes. 

Do you think enough people are taking note of that preventative approach in the concordat, rather than just focusing on the crisis care management?

Okay. Can we move on to the health-based place of safety? Helen Mary talked about places of safety, and, obviously, there are specific health-based places of safety, and we heard from the health boards that Hywel Dda have three and the other ones have one each. In relation to the powers under sections 135 and 136, do you think that there are sufficient health-based places of safety to meet the demands? Because we got the—I got the impression, anyway, that they felt there was, but other people don't. Do you feel there's sufficient health-based places of safety to meet the demand?

Again, I can't answer that question honestly. I don't know. What I do know—

I think there's been an increase. As there's been a decrease in the use of police cells, there's been an increase in health-based places of safety and you can see that in the figures. So, that would suggest that there are more and there's been an investment. Whether that is enough, I don't know, but what I do know is there aren't enough safe places, which is different to the legal definition of a place of safety. So, a safe place doesn't need to be in a hospital setting, it could be somewhere in the community that is welcoming, compassionate, on your doorstep, and where you can spend time while you're recovering. I do know that there's not enough of that. 

Can I just clarify finally, then: does the group actually look at the alternative safe places, which you've just been mentioning—

—and are they looking to work with third sector partners and other partners to look at how you can improve the number of alternative safe places available?

We have talked about it in some detail, and some local health boards are working locally to do that. I heard Richard talking about what they were doing in Llanelli, so that's an example. I know it's happening from place to place, but I think there needs to be—this is an area where I think that if there was some targeted resourcing for this, it would make quite a big difference. This is something where, in a way, we could have a Wales-wide understanding, although the kind of places would be different, obviously, depending on whether you're in a rural area or an urban area. But if we had an understanding that that was the kind of community-based support that we wanted everywhere, and it's very much in line, if you think about it, with 'A Healthier Wales' and the general direction of travel of the Government in terms of more preventative community-based closer to home services—. And I think it's quite a good idea to take it out of statutory services and normalise it and make it much more of a place where people feel safe, rather than a place of safety, if you see what I mean.

There's certainly been a lot of discussion around it and it'll be very interesting to see what the Minister says. 

Da iawn. Nôl at Vikki Howells i ofyn y cwestiynau olaf yn yr adran yma. Vikki.

Very good. Back to Vikki Howells to ask the final questions in this area. Vikki.

13:55

Diolch, Chair. Looking at conveyance, the written evidence we've received highlights that the vast majority of people who are detained under section 136 are still being brought to a place of safety by the police. How can this be resolved? 

Again, this has been on the agenda as one of the long-standing, intractable issues around this. I think it's clear that what you need—you need something that's responsive, quick, not necessarily fully equipped as an ambulance is, and you need it to be more discreet and less stigmatising than being picked up by a police car in your community. There have been a number of suggestions from the Welsh ambulance trust that they could look at this and they could look at developing a 'once for Wales' solution, which is around these kinds of vehicles that are not necessarily ambulances but do have that element of responsiveness and speed to them. 

That was going to be my next question, actually. I was going to ask you about what your views are on that suggestion from the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust. I take it you're in favour of that as a proposal. 

I think that should be looked at, yes. 

Okay. And in their written evidence, the police federation called for the mental health crisis care concordat to be draw into law. Do you share that view? 

I think we've got a good legislative framework in Wales that has a lot of potential for doing the things that we need to do. I don't think you could pick the concordat up and turn it into law but there may be elements within in it, you know, where it would be really interesting to know where the gaps might be. But as it stands, I think we've got what we need to do the job. I think it's about implementation. 

So, bearing in mind your answer there, then, do you think that there's a need to amend our existing legislation and guidance to help better support the police to deal with those who are suffering from mental health crisis? 

I think we've got what we need. I think we've got a good concordat, a good delivery plan. I think it's about implementing it and making sure that wherever you are in Wales, you know what you can expect and you know how to get help and support in a crisis. And it's about spending more time trying to understand what is happening in terms of the level of distress that our emergency services are having to deal with at the moment. 

And, finally, with regard to that implementation, do you think there are any changes that could or should be made to existing operating structures to prevent further the criminalisation of people who present with mental health problems? 

The key guiding principles for the work of the concordat is that we shouldn't be focused on our own organisations, we should be focused on the individual. So, I think that it's really important, through the regional partnership boards and the national partnership boards, that people leave that baggage outside the door and that they innovate and put in place a way of reviewing what is happening in real time and in slow time and that they work jointly on behalf of that individual citizen.  

You mentioned in passing that the chairing of the group is likely to change and that that's likely to be chaired from within the health service. If I'm truthful, I'm a bit worried about that because that's asking somebody to be poacher and gamekeeper at the same time, potentially. I just wonder, and this just came to me as you were talking. Would there be merit in that chair actually being somebody senior from within Welsh Government, rather than one of the health boards taking over that chair, in terms of giving that strong, national focus that we've already touched on?

I think the key thing is having your hands on the levers to make things happen. It's very much an enabling function using what's there. So, personally, whoever it is, it's what happens and how it's done. 

14:00

Reit, rŷm ni wedi dod i ddiwedd y cwestiynau. So, diolch yn fawr iawn i chi am eich presenoldeb, a hefyd am gyflwyno eich tystiolaeth ar lafar mor raenus, a hefyd am y dystiolaeth ysgrifenedig ymlaen llaw. Mi fyddwch chi yn derbyn trawsgrifiad o'r trafodaethau yma, er mwyn gallu gwirio eu bod nhw'n ffeithiol gywir. Ond gyda chymaint â hynny o ragymadrodd, diolch yn fawr iawn i chi.

Ac i fy nghyd-Aelodau, gawn ni doriad nawr tra dŷn ni'n disgwyl am y Gweinidog am 14.20 p.m.

Right, we've come to the end of the questions. So, thank you very much for your attendance, and also for your written and oral evidence that we received beforehand. You will receive a transcript of today's proceedings, in order to check that they are factually accurate. But with those closing words, thank you very much.

And to my fellow Members, we'll have a break until the Minister arrives at 14.20 p.m.

What if we did the papers to note now? And then we might finish a few minutes earlier. 

I nodi yn ffurfiol. Iawn, fe wnawn ni hynny nawr.

To note formally. Yes, we'll do that now, then.

Just a thought, because we've got 10 minutes now, so it'll save us time at the end.

7. Papurau i’w nodi
7. Paper(s) to note

So, eitem 7, cyn inni fynd i doriad, ydy nodi'r llythyr yna oddi wrth y Gweinidog ynglŷn â gofal iechyd gwledig. Pawb yn hapus i nodi?

So, item 7, before we go to a break, is papers note, and we note the letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services regarding rural healthcare. All content to note?

Fe gawn ni drafodaeth eto ynglŷn â'r llythyr i'w ysgrifennu, ond mi wnawn ni nodi'n gyhoeddus. Diolch yn fawr.

Ac efo hynna, fe wnawn ni symud ymlaen i gael toriad rŵan nes bydd y Gweinidog yma ar gyfer y sesiwn olaf o dystiolaeth am 14.20 p.m.

We'll have a discussion again about the letter to be written, but we'll note in public. Thank you.

And with that, we'll move on to have a break now until the Minister will join us at the last evidence session at 14.20 p.m.

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 14:01 a 14:27.

The meeting adjourned between 14:01 and 14:27.

14:25
6. Iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa’r heddlu: Sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda'r Gweinidog Iechyd a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol
6. Mental health in policing and police custody: Evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services

Croeso nôl, bawb, i'r adran olaf o'r Pwyllgor Iechyd, Gofal Cymdeithasol a Chwaraeon yma yn y Senedd heddiw. Dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd eitem 6 erbyn rŵan—parhad efo'r ymchwiliad i iechyd meddwl yng nghyd-destun plismona a dalfa'r heddlu. Dyma sesiwn dystiolaeth gyda'r Gweinidog Iechyd a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol. Wrth gwrs, bydd Aelodau'n ymwybodol, dŷn ni wedi bod yn cynnal yr ymchwiliad undydd yma heddiw yn y maes yma, a hon ydy'r sesiwn dystiolaeth olaf.

Felly, i'r perwyl yna, rwy'n falch iawn o groesawu i'r bwrdd Vaughan Gething, y Gweinidog Iechyd a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol. Croeso hefyd i Joanna Jordan, cyfarwyddwr iechyd meddwl, llywodraethiant a gwasanaethau corfforaethol y gwasanaeth iechyd gwladol, Llywodraeth Cymru; ac hefyd Matt Downton, uwch-swyddog meddygol [Cywiriad: 'pennaeth yr is-adran iechyd meddwl a grwpiau agored i niwed'] Llywodraeth Cymru. Croeso i chi'ch tri. Diolch am y dystiolaeth ysgrifenedig ymlaen llaw. Yn ôl ein traddodiad, mi awn yn syth mewn i gwestiynau. Mae yna nifer helaeth o gwestiynau, felly cwestiynau cryno ac atebion cryno, hyd yn oed. Vikki, i ddechrau.

Welcome back, everyone, to the latest evidence session of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee today at the Senedd. We've reached item 6, a continuation of our inquiry into mental health in policing and police custody. This is the evidence session with the Minister for Health and Social Services. Of course, Members will know that we have been holding this one-day inquiry today in this field, and this is the final evidence session.

So, to that end, I'm very happy to welcome Vaughan Gething, Minister for Health and Social Services. Also, welcome to Joanna Jordan, director of mental health, NHS governance and corporate services at the Welsh Government; and Matt Downton, senior medical officer [Correction: 'head of mental health and vulnerable groups'] at the Welsh Government. So, welcome to the three of you. Thank you for the written evidence in advance. We'll go straight into questions. There are numerous questions, so brief questions and brief answers, even. Vikki to begin.

Diolch, Chair. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services have published their thematic review of mental health and policing, and in there they question whether the police should be as frequently involved in responding to mental health problems as they currently are. So, what are your views, Minister, on the role and responsibilities of police officers when dealing with people with mental health problems in Wales?

Well, obviously, the inspectorate's responsibility is part of raising some of these questions. There's a fair question that we've actually been discussing between health and police forces about the role of the police. In fact, just a few years ago, it was actually quite fractious. When I first became the then-Deputy Minister for Health, it got into a very political space, in particular about whether an emergency ambulance should attend or whether police officers should be there. We're in a better place now, partly because we've actually seen an improvement in our ambulance system since then.

But, really, the improvement has been driven by a better understanding of what each of us is doing, and the concordat has been really helpful in building some of those relationships. I don't think it's as simple as drawing a line and saying, 'Police on this side, health on the other.' It's actually about, when someone presents with a potential crisis, depending on where they present as well, what the role and responsibility is.

So, we don't expect police officers to be mental health experts, but it's about equipping them with enough knowledge and support about where they could go for advice and support or where to take them. The questions have to be seen in that whole context, I think. I recognise it's an unfinished piece of work, as it were. For the improvements we've made, there's no suggestion that everything is fine and there's no need to ask any more questions or to look critically at where we are. Actually, we are reviewing current provision, so I'd say it's an open question, but one for partners to address together, rather than pointing the finger at each other and saying, 'It's you, not me,' because that's actually the wrong approach to take for the agencies, and crucially the wrong approach to take for the person in the middle of it.

14:30

Thank you, Minister. One of the things that we noted in our evidence today is that significant progress has been made in reducing the use of police stations as places of safety, but pressures on ambulances, and the lack of alternative health vehicles mean that police cars, we found, are still most frequently used to convey people to a place of safety following detention. Could you outline for us some of the steps as to how this is going to be resolved?

Well, that's one of the things that we are talking about, and it's been a point of conversation through the mental health crisis care concordat group, and so the NHS collaborative commissioning unit are looking at this area. They're undertaking a mental health urgent access and conveyance review. So, that will look at both how access is provided and where. It will also look at how people get conveyed to a place of safety. Sometimes, it will be appropriate for that to be the police taking that person—again, thinking about how and where someone presents, it might be appropriate. But on other occasions, we recognise that actually, if possible, having either an emergency ambulance or a police vehicle, we could actually look at a different way of getting those people to where they need to be for the support that they require. So, it's about non-emergency transport as well as the two emergency services that we're looking at, and that review will inform where we go. So, the review will be undertaken, the concordat group will get a chance to look at it and comment, and we'll then, hopefully, make choices as partners together about what we're going to do. There will be questions for resource and time, but at least we'll then have a basis to look at where we are as well as where we want to be.

Thank you. In their evidence, their written evidence to us, WAST call for a single, once-for-Wales crisis care model with some local flexibility to address the current challenges in supporting people in mental health crisis. What's your response to this?

I think there are a couple of things. We've just talked about the review that's being undertaken by the NHS collaborative commissioning unit. As well as the review, there are also some pilots under way in both Aneurin Bevan and Hywel Dda health board areas, where they're looking at non-emergency conveyance. So, we've got two pilots in two different health boards, and then we have the rest of Wales. I recognise from the Welsh ambulance service's point of view, as a national organisation they're dealing with a variance in how that is organised between different police force areas, different health board areas, and also 22 local authorities as well. So, actually, it's in everyone's interest, not just the ambulance service's but everyone's interest, to have some more consistency around that. So, whether that is a single, once-for-Wales model or whether it's something with more flexibility is something that we'll be looking at, following that review. But I definitely do recognise the case for greater consistency in approach, and that will be good not just for the service, but actually, as I say, coming back to where we started, good for the person who actually needs care and support.

Ocê. Mae'r cwestiynau nesaf o dan ofal Helen Mary Jones.

Okay. The next questions are from Helen Mary Jones.

Yes. So, one of the issues is about access to 24/7 crisis care, and some of the evidence that we've received suggests that people are ending up in very serious crisis and the police are having to be called because there isn't access to out-of-hours care. What assurances can you give the committee, Minister, that actions for improving access to mental health services, particularly 24/7 crisis care and that single point—? We touched a bit on this, of course, in the debate yesterday. What assurances can you give us that work to deliver that is really moving on with pace?

Right. Well, I'll just say some brief stuff, and then Jo may want to talk about some of the detail, because we put more money into this area within the financial year just ended, through the mental health transformation and innovation fund, and Jo can give you some detail on what that's looked like, and it's a priority for the year ahead. In the debate yesterday, I did set out a recognition that improving crisis care is a priority for the year ahead, but not just for the year ahead, but to have a system approach that is more likely to meet the need that we recognise exists. So, there'll be more money available as well as work to try and understand what that system should look like because we do want to provide around-the-clock crisis care and support. So, I don't think, from the point of view of the ambition on where we want to get to there'll be disagreement; it's actually about how quickly we get there and what that model will look like, and, again, there could be some variants in that. A 24/7 crisis approach in Cardiff and Swansea could look different from Brynmawr, could look different from the middle of Powys. So, we need to understand how we deliver that in different parts of the country, but the key point is making sure that that's available and that the agency partners, whether they're third sector, the police, the health service, local authorities or others, that they understand what that looks like, and, of course, that it's easier for the citizen to be navigated through that process. So, I think it might be helpful to hear from Jo about what we've actually done this year, some of the plans for next year, and, of course, this will be part of 'Together for Mental Health', which we'll be consulting on in the coming months.

14:35

So, some of the examples I think you might have had in some of the written evidence you've had from some of the health boards that have touched on this, and I can provide you with a bit more detail after the meeting, if that would help. It does vary by health board in terms of what they've done with the investment this year. BCU, they've used the money to put the mental health practitioner in the control room in north Wales to test how that works, to provide the effective clinical triage, and have done other things as well. Hywel Dda: a mental health drop-in facility in Llanelli town centre, open from 6 p.m. to 2 p.m. from Thursday to Sunday, a transport service that's been mentioned, and extending the CMHT—the community mental health team—to 24/7 with no referral criteria. And others have done other things. Cwm Taf, for example, have actually focused on providing crisis support for older people and people suffering from dementia because they've seen that as a need in the area. So, there's been a range of different projects. I think what we're going to do now with the additional money we're putting in for the future is actually do a stock take on what's available in each health board area and set some expectations of where we want them to get to with that money and they need to tell us then how they will do that. The crisis teams are a relatively new addition in Wales. So, they are not all 24 hours and operating. So, we need to build on what's there, and we understand that that's a priority the Minister wants to achieve now.

That's some really helpful detail, thank you. They're obviously taking different approaches, which is fine, because they're dealing and they may have different gaps, but what's being done to evaluate those different approaches and to see what's delivering on that clearly established need, which, Minister, you've just made clear is a priority for you? Are there any plans to ensure that there's learning across the local health boards? I'm not saying you could take one model—. What's going to work in Hywel Dda is not necessarily going to be the best thing for Cardiff and the Vale, and I'm not suggesting that, but we've heard a bit of evidence today saying that, there again, it's one of those areas of work where there are some really good initiatives going on, but there's some questioning about how we can make sure that they don't just stay good initiatives, that if we find out, 'This is the most effective thing', that we can, sort of, drive that forward. Obviously, you'll need to evaluate the approaches for that to work.

Yes, fine. So, some of these initiatives have evaluations built in. Some of the best practice and learning is being shared through the concordat group that Matt represents Welsh Government on, and I think they've had a workshop session recently to start looking at how that's working. And the other opportunity that we'll be taking is the establishment of the new mental health health network, where the lead directors from the health boards come together with others, and this will be another area that we'll be looking at through that network in terms of what we see are the emerging models that offer the best hope, recognising that different areas will have different needs and will be starting from different places. So, some will have invested more in their crisis teams earlier on than others, but it's about building up to the best and up to an acceptable standard across Wales, I think. The most important thing is going to be feedback from the service users, the police and other partners, but some of these projects, they take a while to set up, to recruit the staff, and operationally. So, some of them, probably, are only starting to come on stream now although the funding went in some months ago.

Thank you. We've received some pretty compelling evidence of what the police have described as a revolving door, that too many of the patients who are actually presenting under and ending up with section 136 orders are actually already known to mental health services. One study that's been presented to us—60 per cent of the people in a one-month period were already known, and only one of that 60 per cent had a care and treatment plan, regardless of the quality. So, it seems fairly clear that this is evidence that care and treatment planning is not being used as effectively as it ought to be under the mental health Measure, particularly in relation to having something built in to prevent crisis. How can improvements in that area be taken forward? It was quite stark, I think, that the evidence that we've had from police and service users in that regard was different to the evidence we received from the local health boards, who told us that everybody has a care and treatment plan, which, clearly, isn't quite the case.

14:40

The delivery unit have undertaken a review of the qualitative care and treatment planning, and the findings of that are informing what we're going to consult on in the next stage of the 'Together for Mental Health' delivery plan. So, I hope you'll be able to recognise, when we set that out for consultation, steps that we want to take to improve this—. In terms of my involvement as a constituency Member, I have people coming to me raising concerns. So, even if there is a care and treatment plan, the adequacy of it, how well people are being engaged in it, whether it's then making a difference—those are obviously questions I want addressed, which is why they've done the review and why you'll see that featuring—the outcomes and some of the lessons from that in the 'Together for Mental Health' delivery plan consultation.

I was just going to add to that that the statutory requirement for the care and treatment plan is attached to your engagement in secondary care mental health services. Notwithstanding the delivery unit and the quality of the care and treatment plan, there may be some misunderstandings of whether or not the individual is engaged with the community mental health service, in other words services that are caught by the Measure—

Yes, and to what extent—. But that is something that we're picking up, as the Minister has said, as part of the review of care and treatment planning—part of the work we're doing on reviewing the effectiveness of the Measure, and the delivery unit's use of—

It'll be interesting to see the outcome of that.

Just a final question from me about health-based places of safety—and there have obviously been some improvements in that regard—as a Government, do you have a view about the adequacy of the capacity? Have we got enough health-based places of safety and are they in the right places?

Some of that's a local question, again, for partners, because a place of safety doesn't necessarily have to be health-based, and there is work that's ongoing between police forces, health, local government and the third sector on meeting the demand that exists. It's a conversation that is best undertaken by those local partners, and part of what we're trying to do is to improve relationships between partners so they actually have that conversation on an honest basis, rather than the way that I think—it's not unfair to characterise it as—. A few years ago, it was rather more finger-pointing, saying, 'It's your fault.' We're now in a better place for those relationships. They're not perfect everywhere, and, sometimes, there are tensions, because there are resource pressures between different partners.

So, I have an open mind about the number of places of safety we have, whether they're health-based or not. My expectation is that local partners look at the demand they see coming through their various services and understand whether it meets that, and plan to actually meet demand. The thing that we should not forget in this is that about one in five people who are detained under sections 135 or 136 are actually released without any finding of there being a mental health condition. So, this is something about making sure that people who present are treated appropriately and that for those who don't have a mental health condition that they are discharged, and even those who do, how we help and support those people as well.

Hapus? Dŷn ni'n symud ymlaen nawr i ymdrin â'r concordat gofal argyfwng iechyd meddwl, ac mae David Rees yn gofyn y cwestiynau. David.

Content? Moving on now, then, to dealing with the mental health crisis care concordat, and David Rees is asking the questions. David.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Perhaps I'll come back to the concordat in a second, as we're talking about funding, and I might as well ask some questions on funding. You've just talked about alternative places of safety and discussion, and said it's down to local partners to have a discussion as to what they think is appropriate, which I fully accept. But the question that will come is: where does the funding come from if they identify a need and the sources of that? Because we had evidence this morning from the police relating to a sanctuary, and he gave us the costings, roughly, of that. I suppose the question is: where will that funding come from? Will it come from Welsh Government? Will it support, therefore, the ideas of the local partners if they identify such alternative places of safety?

14:45

Well, the starting point is a conversation between partners about what they think they'll need to meet the demand of the population they have a responsibility to serve. Because if the default answer is always, 'This is new, therefore it won't happen unless the Welsh Government put money in', well, we're into the tenth year of austerity, which people have noticed. We're also into a position where lots of partners have felt the direct hit of that as well. And as I said yesterday in the debate in the Chamber, the health service is the only area where there is an undiminished demand and expectation that there'll be more staff and more resource. So, lots of people look to the Government or the health service, and yet, we know that there is lots of demand within the health system as well. So, it should be a grown-up conversation between partners about how they use their resources and how they actually look to fund any additions required. Now, that doesn't mean that the Government can never be asked to help support something, but it shouldn't be the default position that anything new must require Welsh Government resource, otherwise it won't happen and it's the Government's fault. That gets us away from partners having a mature conversation about what they can do with their own resources, and gets to someone who isn't in the room is responsible for us not being able to do more. So, it's partly about making sure that the conversation works in the same place. That's also why the concordat group matters, because it allows those broader conversations to take place in an arena where there is trust when people walk in the room.

I appreciate that it should never be a default position that Welsh Government will be expected to come up with the cash when some new ideas are put forward, but I think it's important that, when these measures are being considered by local partners, particularly the police—and I know there's an issue that perhaps you have to have discussions with the Home Office in relation to this as well—to ensure that that is something that the Welsh Government is supportive of and will look at, particularly, as we were told, again, it could actually save money elsewhere in the system by having these alternative places in situ. So, I think they want to have confidence that, if they come up with these ideas, and it is shown to be supportive and working and beneficial, the Welsh Government will work with them to ensure that funding is arranged. I think that's the crucial thing. So, I'm sure you would say that you would do so, and you would want to— 

Well, we'd always be interested in the evidence about what works, and we've got a range of things we've already talked about and answers to our questions where there is innovation and piloting taking place, we want to understand and evaluate the evidence of that, about the gain made for the citizen and what that means in terms of how organisations use their resources. So, it's not a closed question about saying, 'No, never', but as I say, the starting point is organisations and their resources and how they make the best use of them, including if they want to expand the places of sanctuary and places of safety.

Since you're talking about pilots, and Joanna Jordan mentioned I think it was Betsi that was talking about piloting a triage system that you mentioned. Again, we've had notification from other witnesses about—well, actually, we were told three different models of triage in the south. Who is going to drive the triage? Once you've done the evaluation, who is going to drive the triage concept, the model, because we were being told today that, clearly, it is providing what is needed; it is working. I appreciate there's an evaluation to be done, but it was working. Who is actually going to lead the direction on the triage models? Are you going to leave it to local partnerships, or are you going to give that direction to Welsh Government and if you're going to give that direction to Welsh Government, are you going to fund it? Because the question is, again, they use their money for the model, and all of a sudden, they decided to use their money to provide a model, a pilot, but once pilots are done, there will be a service needed and it will need to be funded.

Well, I don't think we're going to be in a position to direct a particular form of activity, because one of the partners that we're talking about is not a devolved service, at least not at this point in time, anyway. So, we couldn't direct the police to act in a certain way in a model of care, which is why it's got to be about agreement between partners, and the evaluation that's taking place—. Because there are some slightly different models, you're right. The Gwent police force have actually employed a mental health practitioner as part of what they're looking to do. In other parts, in north Wales, as we talked about earlier, it's the mental health transformation fund and that person is actually still employed within the health service. So, it's the understanding of the different models, to evaluate them, and then we will have practical choices to make. And it isn't just money, although, of course, how services are funded is, of course, a consideration that everyone will want to know about, but it is still about how does that work and what's the appropriate model for that particular part of the country? Because I can understand there could be some variance, but I hope we'll get to a point where there are some principles of how people should behave and how partners would want to work together that would help us to deliver the right sort of service.

14:50

Well, that's what we're looking for from the different areas of work that are being undertaken, to understand how we think we'll best be able to meet the demand that exists. And, of course, at some point in time, we'll have to look at that again—(a) to see if we were right in doing that, but also, if demand and need changes, which is entirely possible, because you'd say demand and need are different now to 10 years ago, we'll need to revisit the area again. And that's just the honest truth of policy formulation and then delivering it in practice.

Okay. Just to clarify, from what I gathered: your position is that there will be a variation of models, depending upon need and different partnership agreements in the given areas. And because local police are involved—and you're not responsible for the police, it's not devolved—you feel that it's not going to be for you to direct that model, and therefore, possibly, not necessarily fund it, either, at this stage? That's about right—

The concordat is a forum for a national discussion, and that group—. So, actually, there's an opportunity to have a national discussion in a setting where people are used to talking with each other about these issues and, you know, it depends who owns the evaluation as well. Gwent Police, I'm sure, will share the evaluation that they have had. In fact, they have shared, and we're able to talk about that with them.

I'm not trying to avoid the question, I'm trying to be honest about the variety of pilots that exist, but it's getting to the point of evaluating them, understanding what comes from them, and then being able to agree, hopefully, about how those get taken forward without being entirely prescriptive about that.

Okay. My last question on the funding aspect is: you've mentioned the mental health transformation fund. Is that going to be used to drive innovation and partnership in improving the mental health crisis service, which you said is a priority?

Yes, that's part of the use of the fund. It's part of the use that's been made already. In the evidence from police, where they talked about the moneys that they've secured from the Home Office, on the partnership work with the health service in Wales, it's another good example of where, actually, five years ago, you wouldn't have expected that bid to have been agreed. Now it has been, and there is genuine buy-in from health and police around that. So, it isn't just the transformation fund that we have and how that's being used, it's actually that we're in a good place to see the way that the police forces across Wales and the health service are now working together. That's actually being used as an example of what looks like good practice for forces across England and Wales. So, a real positive for us.

Okay. I'll go back to the concordat now because you mentioned it a couple of times and I was supposed to ask questions on it, anyway. Clearly, we've heard evidence this afternoon that there's a belief that the concordat actually is achieving a positive result because there are fewer people being held in police custody as a consequence of that. So, it's important, but here in Wales, we also have understanding of the multi-agency teamwork that is required for mental health crisis situations, and we have the future generations Act. So, here in Wales, we have quite a good framework by which we can develop strong responses to mental health crisis and delivering the concordat. I suppose the question is: do you think the governance framework for the concordat is correct?

Yes, I think the governance and oversight for the concordat is appropriate. We have an assurance group and regional partnerships report directly into that. The important thing is making sure that it works so people can understand where the governance lies. The chairing of the group is due to move to the national health service, and I think that'll reinforce the role of the health service as a key partner to make sure it is not seen as just a health issue or just a police issue, but, actually, the NHS are there to work with other partners and to make sure that they are always present.

It's been raised again that perhaps the chairing by the NHS to actually look at what the NHS does sometimes might not be the proper thing. Do you think it's appropriate for the national health service representation to actually chair that, or should it be an independent chair?

No, I am not concerned about having an NHS person chair that group, because they will be in the chair in a meeting with a range of other partners in that room as well, and any of you who've engaged with police forces or, indeed, the third sector in this area will know that they will certainly express their view, whether it's a positive or a critical one. So I don't think it will neuter the conversation. I'm interested in how partners agree on what the future should look like, and actually then go ahead and do it. There's got to be some commitment from everyone in the room, not just the chair, to actually try to make sure that their organisations sign up to something and then go ahead and deliver it. 

14:55

I've got a supplementary from Helen Mary at this point. We'll come back. 

It builds on what Dai suggested, and I hear what you're saying, Minister, but I think it is—I still have a bit of a worry about that. So just to be clear on who the assurance group—. Obviously, they're a partnership and, as you've said, you've got non-devolved services in there as well. Are they answerable to you? Does the assurance group report to you or—?

Well, do you want to deal with the chair, and then Matt can talk to you about the detail of the group and how it reports?

So, the decision to change the chair wasn't just taken in isolation. It was as a result of conversations with the various partners in terms of a recognition it was now moving on to a new stage. 

The initial concordat work, the group was established to agree the concordat and get it embedded. It had gone way past that, and it was now moving into a stage where there was an even bigger need for organisations to commit resources and time, et cetera, to move the thing forward. So, there was a discussion around the table that this might be the time to move it. There was some discussion about where that chair should sit. It wasn't that we unilaterally decided that it should be the NHS, so, just to be clear on that. But Matt can talk to you about how there are regular reports coming from the concordat groups. 

The group meets on a quarterly basis and all of the regional partnerships report formally into that group. It was recognised, when the group moved from a task and finish group into an assurance group, that it did need to strengthen that governance, because as a task and finish group it didn't have formal reporting. It now does have formal reporting into Welsh Government. So, on a six-monthly basis, Welsh Government will get a report from the task and finish group—sorry, from the assurance group. The other thing that was recognised in the move from a task and finish to the assurance group was the need to strengthen the data to give it something to assure on. So it designed a new data set to enable the group to have more robust and a wide variety of data, to be able to report in to Welsh Government on that. So, that connection's been strengthened with the new assurance group. 

And the ministerial reporting is then to me. So, when I meet police and crime commissioners and chief constables, I'm there with the Minister who's got the primary oversight for our relationship with non-devolved emergency services, but for the mental health part of the meeting, the relationship with the health part of the meeting, I'm there to make sure that I'm properly sighted on that. So when you have your blue-light colleagues in the room, the health Minister's there as part of it. So, yes—for this part, it reports to my department. 

I'm just wondering whether perhaps we could ask you to consider keeping that chairing under review, because if it does report directly to you, whether there might be an argument—I think, Mr Downton, you sit for the Welsh Government on the group, don't you?

So whether it might be appropriate for you to be the chair, because in that sense you're independent of all the actual service providers. But I'll chuck that out as a thought. Because it's obviously much more positive, as you've said, Minister—a much more positive environment around these issues than it was even a couple of years ago, I think, in terms of partnership working. That's what we're hearing, isn't it? People are on the whole pleased with that. And I suppose having had a third sector chair, that gave an element of independence because they're not primarily service providers, though they are service providers. So it's about making sure that that chairing carries on being as independent as it has been up to now. 

If there is a problem in the way that the group is being run, and people's ability to be heard and listened to, then of course we can look at the chairing arrangements. But I think that's more likely to come from the ability to chair that group in a certain way, rather than the organisation someone comes from. Because having a third sector chair doesn't guarantee effectiveness any more than having a police constable or a crime commissioner in the chair. So, look, if it doesn't work, then of course we'll look at it. It's about making sure that it works, and in particular, the health service will always be in the room, and always taking part in those discussions, and then needing to make sure that, from a health service point of view, we deliver our end of the bargain as well. I say 'we', when of course I'm the Minister, as opposed to—. I'm not a doctor or a nurse, and we should all be grateful for that.

15:00

We should add that it will be a vice-chair of a health board chairing the meeting, rather than an executive member of a health board. 

Just very briefly. Mr Downton, you mentioned the assurance group having worked up some new data sets, and obviously we've got the long-term project of producing comprehensive data sets, but we've had evidence suggesting to us that there may be some data that could be published or could be shared before the whole project is finished. And I'm just curious to know whether those data sets might be things that could be shared with the committee so we know what the assurance group is measuring itself against. 

We can share the data set, but also the 135, 136 new data set will be available before the longer term mental health core data set. So, we would expect that to be available and published within this year. 

It's a very simple one on the concordat now. You talked about the reason we're moving is because we're moving away from the original concept into delivery and implementation, so just one final point, Minister, on that: I assume that you believe that the concordat is ambitious enough to deliver what is needed, particularly in this area of crisis care in police custody. 

Yes, I think it is. It's looking at the wider system, not a narrow area of it, and the good thing is, because the conversation takes place within that group, if there are other useful areas to look at, then there's no hard wall to say you can't talk about it. And often, what comes from genuine and effective partnership working is you find other problems that you have that you can help each other with and find answers to. So I'm hopeful it won't just be about improving relations in one area, but, yes, I think the ambition and the remit of the group is appropriate and certainly ambitious enough, yes.

Well, the Police Federation have actually submitted evidence calling for the concordat to be drawn into law. Now, I'm not sure whether we could do that here because policing is not a devolved matter, but what's your view on whether this should, perhaps, be in legislation, rather than just a concordat?

We've just had a major review of the Mental Health Act 1983 with, I think, well over 100 recommendations. So, there are lots of recommendations for every part of the UK to look at, and I think we'll want to look at what that means for the state of the law and whether we need to change it, rather than rushing to put a particular part of practice in. And the improvement has been about cultural change. We've done all this without changing the law. The other point I'd make is that, often, changing the law is presented as an answer to a problem, but the law doesn't always change practice. Even if we thought changing the law could help, then at the point in time that we're at now, our ability to legislate for matters that don't relate to the dreaded 'B' word are restricted. So I'd need to prioritise what sort of difference I could or would make. So I'd need to be persuaded that changing the law in this area and putting the concordat on a statutory footing would be the right thing to do to deliver that gain that we're looking for and that continuing improvement. 

Okay. Finally, obviously, we're talking about people who are in crisis, who are vulnerable, who are facing challenging times and, as a consequence of that, may have to face the police as a consequence. I suppose we don't want to criminalise these unless there is no other option, in one sense. Are you comfortable that there are sufficient operational structures to ensure that we do not create additional criminalisation where it's not necessary?

Well now we're getting into an area that probably isn't a Welsh Government responsibility as of yet. The choice about whether to use the criminal justice system is not a matter that rests with the Welsh Government. What we are trying to do is to make sure that people's healthcare and well-being needs are properly met, and that should give alternatives to deal with behaviour that could cause challenge or problems for other citizens, but in a way that meets the care needs of individuals. And that can mean that there isn't then a need or a desire to use the criminal justice system. And I would much rather that were the case, as well, of course, as the shared responsibilities for the healthcare and well-being, physical and mental health of people within the criminal justice system. 

But the operational structures we've been talking about, many are within the devolved areas. 

The operational structures we have are about trying to use those to deliver better outcomes—better use of resources, better outcomes for the person in the middle—but still within that the choice about whether to exercise powers of detention that police officers have, and to use the broader criminal justice system, which is not one that we're in charge of. I do think, though, that the work that's being done is part of making sure that there are those alternatives that don't lead to charging decisions being made. That's part of the reason why we're engaged and, actually, the police forces themselves want us to be engaged to have alternative and appropriate means of helping and assisting people.

15:05

Okay. One of the things that's also been very much raised today, and it was raised in the HIW report that was debated yesterday, is the advice and support given to people who are being discharged to ensure that they know who to contact out of hours in a crisis. And we were getting messages about the fact that that wasn't always very good. What are you doing to ensure that, as people are leaving the situation, they have that advice, they have that guidance, not just the individual, but their families or their carers also have that advice and guidance, so that if a crisis arises again, they know who to contact out of hours?

So, this is clearly an issue that we're aware of from the evidence that we've had around this agenda and concordat table, but also from some of the work that the delivery unit have done for us in terms of care and treatment planning. So, there isn't a, 'We're going to do one thing and that's going to change it', but certainly in terms of the priorities that we're setting for health boards over the next 12 months around improving crisis and out-of-hours care, and how the care and treatment plans support that work, that will be part of it. And some of that may be more detailed audit or more work with individual health boards to check that's happening, but it should be happening now; it is a requirement. Where it's not happening, we need to tackle that, but it's not an easy fix to say we want it done, because in actual fact that should be happening now. 

I very much noted the comments from the Hywel Dda representative this afternoon, when he said it's not the care and treatment plan, it's the quality of the care and treatment plan, which I appreciate. But that is the concern, that the quality of those plans is actually not to the level we should be expecting.

Yes. I suppose we are in a position where the care and treatment plans, the holistic nature of them, didn't exist a number of years ago; they were introduced as a result of the Measure. But now, in reviewing them, we need to make sure that the fact that we've introduced them isn't leading to the fact that they're not having the intended effect and benefits. In many cases, they are, but not in all. So, this is perhaps a particular area of the care and treatment plans that we need some focused work on in all health boards over the coming period. 

Hapus? Unrhyw gwestiwn? Na. Diwedd y cwestiynau, felly diwedd y sesiwn. Diolch yn fawr iawn ichi am eich presenoldeb, ac hefyd am ddarparu'r dystiolaeth ysgrifenedig ymlaen llaw. Mi fyddwch chi'n derbyn trawsgrifiad o'r drafodaeth er mwyn i chi wirio ei fod o'n ffeithiol gywir fel arfer, ond gyda hynny, diolch yn fawr iawn i chi. 

Happy? Any questions? No. That's the end of the questions, so the end of the session. Thank you very much for attending, and also for providing the written evidence in advance. You will receive a transcript of the proceedings so that you can check for factual accuracy as usual, but with those few words, thank you very much. 

8. Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 (vi) i benderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod hwn
8. Motion under Standing Order 17.42 (vi) to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting

Cynnig:

bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(vi).

Motion:

that the committee resolves to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(vi).

Cynigiwyd y cynnig.

Motion moved.

Symud ymlaen, i'm cyd-Aelodau, dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd eitem 8 rŵan, a chynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42(vi) i benderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod yma. Ydy pawb yn gytûn? Pawb yn gytûn, felly wnawn ni wahardd y cyhoedd. Diolch yn fawr.

And moving on, to my fellow Members, we've now reached item 8, which is a motion under Standing Order 17.42(vi) to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting. All content? All content. So, we will exclude the public. Thank you very much. 

Derbyniwyd y cynnig.

Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am 15:09.

Motion agreed.

The public part of the meeting ended at 15:09.