Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Murphy and Lord Layard

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Layard]

My Lords, some years ago I had a meeting with a newly appointed Secretary of State for Health, although he was not that newly appointed—he had been there for three weeks. At the end of our conversation about mental health, he said, “You know, I’ve just realised something. I’ve been in this job for three weeks, I’ve had about 50 meetings and this is the first time I’ve heard the words ‘mental health’”. That says it all. That is how our health service is run and, unfortunately, how the priorities are set. I should just like to review four key facts to show why this is not at all satisfactory.

First, according to the official survey, one in six adults suffers from mental illness, mainly clinical depression or crippling anxiety disorders. These are serious conditions, as has been said. For example, a very good WHO study compared the debilitating effect of depression with that of angina, arthritis, asthma and diabetes. Depression is at least 50 per cent more debilitating than those conditions. That is why half of all the disabled people of working age in our country are disabled by mental illness. It is not a small segment but a massive chunk. It is the largest illness among people of working age.

However, coming to my second point, only a quarter of those who are mentally ill are in treatment, compared with more than 80 per cent of those with the kind of physical illnesses that I mentioned. Last year the chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners wrote to his members with the question: if you have a patient who needs psychological treatment, can you get it normally, sometimes or rarely? Only 15 per cent said “normally”. That is the situation that we are in, which is shocking. The treatments that are available are good. They are recommended by NICE but simply not delivered on a proper scale, even though they are meant to be delivered according to the NICE guidelines.

Thirdly, what is even more extraordinary is that these are cheap treatments. It is quite easy to show from the experience of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapy programme, for example, that they completely pay for themselves through savings on out-of-work benefits, lost taxes, unnecessary visits to the GP and unnecessary references to secondary care. However, if we ask what commissioners’ priorities are, these treatments are of lower priority than many of those for physical conditions that are often much less disabling.

Finally, what is so extraordinary about this, as other speakers have said, is that the problems of people with mental health difficulties also rebound on their physical condition. We also know that many physical conditions rebound on mental conditions. Many physically ill people—those suffering from angina, lung disease or a stroke, for example—suffer from depression. Several proper clinical trials show that, with proper psychological treatment of these mental conditions, the physical condition will improve to the extent that all the money is, again, repaid in savings in physical care. Therefore, we should give much more priority to these conditions.

We also see cases where people are referred with physical conditions that have no physical explanation. Something like half of all referrals to the secondary sector fall into that category of medically unexplained symptoms. Again, many of those will respond to psychological treatments.

Despite all this, we all know where mental health stands in the priorities of commissioners. It counts if there is a serious risk of homicide or suicide. Then they really get to it. However, if not, it is, unfortunately, the easiest area to cut, which is happening on quite a scale at the moment. Two years ago the regulator, Monitor, recorded the fact that mental health services are cut by more than physical health services whenever there is a shortage of money. Monitor recorded this in its advice to trusts on how to budget in the future; it was part of its guidance. It is invariably the case that mental health is cut more than physical health when there is a shortage of money. It is just extraordinary. That guidance was eventually recanted but it is the reflex throughout the commissioning world. I am making the point that this is not only important but a very big thing. That is why it is important that we include the phrase “physical and mental illness”, and do so from the beginning of the Bill. If we do not, people will tend to forget mental health, as the department did for three weeks when it was briefing the then Secretary of State. I urge the noble Earl to take this amendment very seriously.

[Baroness Murphy]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the eloquent speech by my noble friend Lady Hollins and other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, if only to give the House a hat trick from the psychiatrists who are here today.

In 1845 the Lunacy Act first separated physical and mental health with the building of the asylums. Before that, in the Poor Law Commission’s provision of service to the general population, around 30 per cent of the medical time of general practitioners and specialists who were engaged by the Poor Law Commission was spent on people with mental health problems and what we would call learning disabilities. That division, however good it was in developing the services in other ways, has led to a separating out which continued after 1948, to the detriment of the development of services.

This Government and their predecessor have done an enormous amount to right that imbalance. As I have pursued my career in psychiatry, I have seen a dramatic difference in the investment that has been made in mental health services. However, there is still a lack of parity and when people talk about illness they still mean physical illness. I do not know whether the wording “physical and mental” is quite right in this amendment. However, it seems to me that the time is right to have an explicit provision on the face of the Bill regarding the equal importance of mental health and physical health in building a healthy nation. Unless we address physical and mental health together, we will not improve public health. It would be a good time to get such a provision in this Bill as it moves forward with a new style of NHS. I hope the Minister agrees that this is too important a matter to let it go.