Welsh gov announce new mental health plans
Thousands of people across the country are affected by suicide. Losing loved ones is an incredibly difficult thing to go through. The Welsh government have announced a new strategy aiming to help prevent suicide wherever possible, so we find out from members of the Senedd what is being put in place.
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00:00 The consultation documents published today set out our commitment to develop this further
00:08 with partners as part of a whole system approach to protect, improve and provide support for
00:15 mental health and to reduce suicide and self-harm in Wales.
00:21 There are two separate strategies announced in the Senate, one focusing on mental health
00:25 and one focusing on suicide and self-harm prevention. Both are linked but both do different
00:29 jobs. One aspect of the mental health plan is to try and move away from over-medicalising
00:34 mental health and instead give a more support-based approach.
00:38 A key theme in our engagement so far is not to medicalise mental health. Mental health
00:45 has become a term that is used to describe a wide range of circumstances. We want to
00:51 see a shift in how we talk about and support mental health issues to better reflect the
00:57 needs of individuals. The majority of people who we might define as having a mental health
01:03 issue do need support but don't need specialised mental health services. For those that need
01:10 specialised mental health services, we have also been clear about how we intend to strengthen
01:16 these further. The strategies are a first step to work with stakeholders to reset the
01:22 language around mental health and wellbeing.
01:27 While the mental health strategy may include more people, the suicide prevention strategy
01:30 is arguably more impactful. Opposition Senate Members want to make sure it is taken extremely
01:35 seriously.
01:38 Reducing the rates of suicide and self-harm in our society is vital. Suicide and self-harm,
01:43 especially suicide, leaves far too many families and people and loved ones across Wales with
01:48 a hole that could never be filled. Reducing self-harm is also very important because we
01:53 don't want to see the long-term effects of that on people. People lose their lives when
01:57 they self-harm. We need to get on top of that.
02:01 It is good to hear about the organisations that the Deputy Minister has worked with,
02:04 especially the Youth Parliament. It is very important that we get the views of young people
02:08 when we create these strategies. A lot of young people suffer with mental health conditions
02:13 and it is vital that we get their buy-in and input into these strategies.
02:18 The Welsh Government understand how important suicide prevention is and want to do what
02:22 they can to tackle the issue. They say they hope the new strategy is the first step.
02:27 We are committed to reducing the number of people who die by suicide. As far as I am
02:33 concerned, one person dying by suicide is one too many. The rates have been largely
02:40 stable over the last few years, but we want to drive those rates down much, much further.
02:46 That is what this new strategy is about.
02:51 These issues are very important to so many people all around Wales and have detrimental
02:55 effects on people and families. There is hope that this can begin to fix a problem so impactful.
03:00 James B. Watkins, reporting from Wales.
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