Speaking in the Welsh Parliament this afternoon, Shadow Minister for Local Government and Communities Mark Isherwood AM, has called on the Welsh Government to ensure rough sleepers are able to access integrated substance misuse and mental health services.
In the Debate on the Assembly Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report: ‘Rough sleeping follow up - Mental health and substance misuse services’, Mr Isherwood, who is a member of the Committee, spoke of the difficulties rough sleepers experience in accessing the services; highlighted that latest ONS figures show that Wales saw an 84% increase in drug-related deaths over the previous decade, and that across England and Wales, Wales comes second only to the north east of England for the highest mortality rate for drug-related deaths; and emphasised the need for increased provision of ‘Tier 4’ services.
He said:
“As our report states “an issue that kept being raised was the difficulty for rough sleepers to access integrated substance misuse and mental health services” - and “we have concerns on the level of integrated support for rough sleepers with co-occurring disorders”.
“Although we noted ‘There may be some small pockets of integrated services such as the work of the Community Care Collaborative in Wrexham … these appear to be the exception and not the norm’.
“The Welsh Government only accepts in principle our recommendation 4 calling on it to take “a lead role in working with organisations across sectors to drive forward the necessary cultural change”- and dodges our statement that it should “update the Committee on the actions it has taken and timescales for future actions to deliver this recommendation at six, nine and twelve months”.
“It instead states that “Implementing the Housing Support Grant will be the key mechanism through which we will achieve this objective”. Despite this, the Welsh Government played fast and loose with this grant in its Draft Budget by giving it a cash flat settlement - a cut in real terms— with Cymorth Cymru, Community Housing Cymru and Welsh Women's Aid warning that services preventing homelessness and supporting independent living have now reached a tipping point”.
Mr Isherwood added: “In accepting our recommendation 9, the Welsh Government states that it “remains committed to ensuring that residential rehabilitation and inpatient detoxification services are available, that it allocates £1m ring fence annual funding to Area Planning Boards for the provision of Tier 4 services” – and that it is currently tendering for a contract for an All Wales Substance Misuse Residential Rehabilitation Framework which will provide a list of approved residential rehabilitation and detoxification service providers.
“What they don’t say is: That it is unclear whether the £1 million is ringfenced, that their previous Framework, which resulted in referrals to non-Framework units outside Wales, has expired, and that following damning reports, a previous Welsh Government stated that it was taking forward work on three units in Wales, but two of these have since closed”.
Mr Isherwood added: “As the Wallich’s Chief Executive told us “we definitely need to improve access to Tier 4, but, at the moment, my services can’t get people through the assessment” – and as the Chief Executive of Kaleidoscope told us, “Tier 4 is chronically underfunded” and “there is very little funding for anyone with a drugs issue to get into a Tier 4 service”.
