Written question WQ84359

The Welsh Government has a strong track record of supporting individuals with complex needs, including those with a co-occurring mental health and/or substance misuse issue. To support this work, in particular for those people who are homeless, we invited Area Planning Boards, Local Mental Health Partnership Boards and housing to jointly bid for targeted funding of £1m in 2019/2020 for projects that specifically supported those with complex needs, with particular consideration of those that are homeless / vulnerably housed.

A total of £1.3m was funded over 2019-20 and 2020-21, with ongoing funding of £1m in 2021-22. This funding supported four of the seven Area Planning Board areas in Wales. The draft budget supports the continuation of this work and a further £1m has been allocated to expand support to the remaining areas in Wales to help them address complex needs in their areas. To maintain this work our draft budget sets out a further £1.5m in 2023/24 and £1m in 24/25, taking our investment in this work to £4.5m by 2024.

In addition, there is flexibility for health boards to consider the needs of co-occurring mental health and substance misuse services as part of mental health service improvement funding being released in 2022/23 as it is a defined priority area within the Together for Mental Health Delivery Plan 2019-2022.