Health Secretary, Vaughan Gething has announced £13.4m for a Gwent project to transform the way health and social care services are delivered locally.
This was published under the 2016 to 2021 administration of the Welsh Government
Led by the Gwent Regional Partnership Board, the project is the latest to receive financial support from a £100m Welsh Government fund to develop new ways to deliver health and social care services that can eventually be rolled out across Wales.
Mr Gething, made the announcement during a visit to Serennu Children’s Centre in High Cross, where he saw examples of health and social care services being delivered in tandem, to support children with complex needs including ASD.
He explained the funding, provided over two years, will help accelerate projects like these which support key actions from the Welsh Government’s long term plan for health and social care, A Healthier Wales.
The Gwent project has two parts. It will develop new services focused on promoting well-being and preventing illness at a community level to reduce the burden on hospital and will improve the integration between health and social services to ensure a seamless experience for patients.
The transformation work will redraw the landscape across Child and adolescent mental health services to deliver improved access to better services, closer to home. It will establish a 24/7 hospital discharge scheme, which will mean that people are able to get home faster, with the right package of care in place. It will also implement a place based model of care in Caerphilly, as an initial pilot, which will mean that people can access a range of new services within their community rather than being reliant on GP services.
Mr Gething said:
“Our health and social care services are facing increasing demand and if we are to ensure they are fit for the future we need to look at new ways of delivering them.
This will require better integration of health and social services to reduce reliance on hospitals and deliver care closer to home. The Transformation Fund will be used to fund a small number of projects which have the most impact in developing and delivering new models of care. They will have the potential to scale up and be used to improve service delivery across Wales.
Phil Robson, Chair of the Regional Partnership Board said:
“This additional funding will provide much needed resources across Gwent to move our transformation plans forward at substantial pace. We are working as a partnership, across health local government and the third sector, to deliver a very ambitious plan and we are pleased that the Minister has confidence in us as a region to deliver.”