A PROJECT to develop s health and social care services for people with learning disabilities in Wales is to get funding from a £100m Welsh Government fund.

Health Secretary, Vaughan Gething, today (Tuesday) announced £1.69m funding over two years for the North Wales Regional Partnership Board to develop new ways of working that could eventually be used across Wales.

The funding comes from the £100m Transformation Fund to support key actions from the Welsh Government’s long term plan for health and social care, A Healthier Wales.

Through better integrating health, social care and the third sector, the project aims to help people with learning disabilities live more independently and get the care they need to closer to home.

It aims to achieve this with better integration of health and social services, less duplication of record systems, workforce development to create better awareness of disability issues among the public sector workforce, use of assistive technology to help people with learning disabilities become more independent and culture change, and increasing the number of people employed in paid work, accessing training, and volunteering,

Mr Gething said: “Our long term plan for health and social care, sets out how we will transform the way we deliver care to ensure it is sustainable in the future. This will require better integration of health and social services to reduce reliance on hospitals and deliver care closer to home. The Transformation Fund will be used to fund a small number of projects which have the most impact in developing and delivering new models of care, and which have potential to scale up so they can be used across Wales.

Councillor Gareth Roberts, chair of the North Wales Regional Partnership Board, said: “We are delighted to hear that our bid for funding has been successful. We have a big ambition in North Wales to improve health and social care, with a clear focus on putting people first and working our services around the needs of residents."