How is the Welsh Government encouraging men who are struggling to seek mental health support?
I responded to a short debate earlier this year, brought by Sam Rowlands, about young men’s mental health. In this I set out the work we are doing to support men’s mental health: Plenary 07/05/2025 - Welsh Parliament
Our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy sets out our intention to reorientate mental health services to move to same-day, open access support, which is available when needed. We have an ambition to be the first to roll out this model across the whole nation. This model of care is evidenced based and aims to make services easier to access. This will also increase patient choice in how individuals want to access services.
This will build on the success of services like 111 press 2. This has now received over 200,000 calls, with around 40% of those calls coming from men. We also provide online cognitive behavioural therapy which doesn’t need a referral and can be accessed at any time – so this provides more choice in how people can access support.
We are also developing an integrated health and social care quality statement for mental health. This will set the standards for what health boards, local authorities and commissioned partners are expected to deliver to ensure good quality mental health services across Wales.