NHS: Reform

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

There is no doubt that, looking forward over the next five years, the resource to be put into primary care will be greater, relatively, than it has been in the past. We wish to deliver more care outside hospital. That is why we are committed to training and having in place 5,000 more doctors in general practice by the end of this Parliament—not just GPs, but others who will support GPs.

The model of primary care will change significantly over the next five years, and it is fundamental to the five-year forward view that we reduce the number of people going into acute hospitals and that we discharge people at the other end of their journey through an acute hospital much quicker.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the principle of working towards a weekend service—indeed, I think it is hard not to—but I certainly do not underestimate the difficulty of achieving it, particularly in a fully joined-up way. This morning, I attended a meeting with many children and young people who had experienced a serious mental health crisis at the weekend and had real difficulty accessing the treatment they needed. Indeed, some of them had turned up at A&E but there had simply been no mental health services available for them. In the light of that, will the Minister reassure me that the principle of seven-day working will apply to consultants from mental health disciplines, particularly those treating children and young people whose access to those services seems to be even harder to secure than it is for adults? Secondly, the Statement talked about CQC quality ratings as well as waiting times being made accessible to patients. Will he confirm that these will include waiting times for mental health services?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The Government are committed to parity of esteem, and if we are truly committed to parity of esteem the answer to both the noble Baroness’s questions must be yes. We must have the same standards for physical health as we have for mental health. If someone has a psychotic crisis on a Friday afternoon and they cannot get access to any help until the following Monday, that is clearly extremely poor care. If they end up in an A&E department being looked after by people who have no experience of dealing with mental health problems, it is a very poor environment to be in, so I agree entirely with the noble Baroness.