Julie Morgan MS, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services
This was published under the 2016 to 2021 administration of the Welsh Government
We remain committed to our vision of securing well-being for people who need care and support and carers who need support. Significant progress has been made in the nearly ten years since our first White Paper on social care, Sustainable Social Services: A Framework for Action 2011, which marked the beginning of our transformational journey. The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 has reshaped the nature of the sector. It shares with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 a focus on well-being, an ethos of prevention and early intervention and the imperative of co-production and cross-sector working.
However, the pandemic has put the social care system under great strain and made the fragility of the sector more visible. Years of UK-wide austerity has made its mark on public finances, and a further challenging period lies ahead of us. That is why we must increase the pace of our transformational work to make social services sustainable.
I have published a white paper consultation on rebalancing care and support. To be fit for the future we are proposing legislative changes that we believe are essential to secure our vision. We intend to develop a national framework for commissioning social care that will rebalance care and support. It will reduce complexity and ensure that quality is the key determinant of success in the social care market. We know that continuity of the social care workforce has a significant impact on the achievement of people’s outcomes, and therefore there will be a strong link between the national framework and action to support the workforce.
We remain committed to Regional Partnership Boards and want to support them to build on their successes to strengthen integration across Wales. We will enhance Regional Partnership Boards by providing them with a sharper set of tools to deploy, to better plan and deliver care and support where collective action is essential in order to improve people’s well-being.
I hope all members of the Senedd will encourage all those with an interest to take part in our consultation so that we can work together to achieve our vision or securing well-being for people.