Mental Health and NHS Performance Update

Debate between Baroness Berridge and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She is absolutely right: millions of people across the country care for a relative who has some care need, be it a spouse, somebody at retirement age or a child with mental health problems. I do not have the specific details to answer her question; I shall write to her with those details—but through the social care reforms being delivered by local authorities and the reforms going forward through the five-year forward view in community health, there is more focus on that ground-level support, in a way that is much more difficult to do from Whitehall. So we are seeing through the early drafts of the STPs—one of the new bits of jargon that I have had to learn—ideas for how to provide family support that goes beyond the statutory support that is available through the benefits system or the community health system.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend to his new role and welcome particularly his comments on the parity in practice, as well as in law, of mental and physical health. I welcome the Government’s commitment of money and the Green Paper on young people’s mental health. Can my noble friend please comment on whether there will be a focus on the disparities of outcomes that persist for many in the black and minority ethnic community, who are often diagnosed late, are more likely to be detained for their condition and overall suffer poorer outcomes as a result in mental health? Could some focus be given to these issues of disparity?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for her warm welcome. I take that point very seriously. Clearly, parity of esteem is no good unless it is applicable to everybody who is suffering from a particular illness. I am not fully aware of the details of the nature of the disparity with black and minority ethnic families but, if there is a problem, making sure that we fulfil this ambitious and I hope welcome strategy is going to make sure that we can lift performance of those services for people in minority ethnic groups.