Mental Health and Wellbeing
As part of the Co-Operation Agreement with Welsh Government, we will take further steps towards Plaid Cymru’s aim of securing more investment for mental health services especially for young people.
We will test how The Sanctuary Model - where community facilities with extended opening hours, run by trained third sector staff and clear referral pathways into NHS - can help support young people in crisis or with an urgent mental health or emotional wellbeing issue. These centres would be open evenings and weekends.
Ceredigion’s Here For You Project
In response to long waiting times to access mental health support, Plaid Cymru-led Ceredigion County Council supported a local youth charity to provide easily accessible mental health services to young people in the county.
The Council-led Cynnal y Cardi scheme provided funding for the Here for You project, which gives young people, particularly those in rural areas, fast access to free, online, talking therapy services.
✔ Plaid Cymru: Making a Difference
Wales’s First Track and Trace System
In April 2020, while Governments in Westminster and Cardiff struggled to establish a tracing system costing billions of pounds, Plaid Cymru-led Ceredigion County Council took control and set up its own cost-effective, bespoke test-and-trace system.
Drawing on the Council’s Public Protection team’s expertise in tracing contacts of other illnesses before the pandemic, Ceredigion’s system was established within days, saving lives and reducing hospitalisations by doing so.
The scheme attracted UK-wide attention for its role in keeping the infection rate in Ceredigion at the lowest level in Wales during the early stages of the pandemic, with 57 cases per 100,000 people at a time when the Welsh national Welsh average was 461 cases per 100,000.*
✔ Plaid Cymru: Making a Difference
Wales’s First Field Hospital
Plaid Cymru-led Carmarthenshire County Council leapt into action during the first weeks of the pandemic, working in partnership with Hywel Dda Health Board and local contractors to build four emergency hospitals in three weeks in readiness to reduce pressure on the NHS.
The Council converted Parc y Scarlets from a rugby stadium into a collection of field hospitals in just 21 days, becoming the first Local Authority in Wales to do so.
✔ Plaid Cymru: Making a Difference
Saving Local A&E Services
When Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board announced that they intended to close the 24-hour A&E services at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, Plaid Cymru Councillors in Rhondda Cynon Taf threw their weight behind local residents, signing petitions, sending letters to key decision makers, and joining local campaign groups. The decision to close the services was overturned, ensuring that local residents can access emergency care in their community.
✔ Plaid Cymru: Making a Difference
* PHW data from 11 June 2020