Written question WQ95957

The national framework for the delivery of bereavement care published in October 2021 sets out Welsh Government’s vision for a compassionate Wales, where everyone has equitable access to high-quality bereavement care and support to meet their needs when they need it.

Since then, a huge amount of work has been undertaken to improve care and support for all those who are facing, or have experienced, the loss of a loved one. This includes the development and establishment of core principles, minimum bereavement care standards and a range of actions to support regional and local planning.

Work is also ongoing to implement a national bereavement pathway for Wales, providing information and guidance to health boards and bereavement support providers to promote a consistent approach for accessing bereavement support across Wales. The overarching model specification and the first of the bereavement-specific pathways relating to sudden and unexpected death in children and young people have been launched. Significant progress has also been made on the pathways for children and young people and pregnancy and baby loss.

The £3m Bereavement Support Grant is just one of a number of funding streams supporting bereavement in Wales. £420k per annum is provided to health boards to support bereavement co-ordination and over £7.2m has been provided to hospices in the last 12 months, many of which also provide bereavement support.

It is the responsibility of health boards to provide bereavement services for their locality and to determine if there are sufficient resources to support the bereavement needs of their population. We monitor health boards progress through the bereavement measure within the NHS Performance Management Framework. At six monthly intervals they are required to provide an update on their activities to embed the Framework and National Bereavement Pathways, which enables us to monitor progress and work collaboratively with them to support improvements.