Oral Answers to Questions
Charles Walker Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hunt
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. We have looked into this and realised that there are two issues when it comes to improving children’s and young people’s mental health. The first is improving access to specialist care for those who need it. The other is prevention: the work that can be done by teachers within schools and in training people in mental health first aid. Those kinds of things can make a huge difference and we want to make sure we do them both.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on child and adolescent mental healthcare, but what is he going to do about out-of-area transfers, which too often mean that children are found beds 200 or 300 miles away from their home? That is not in anyone’s interest, and it certainly is not in a child’s interest to be that far away from their support network.
Mr Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for his continuing campaign on mental health issues. He is right to say that this situation is completely unacceptable, not least because if we want a child to get better quickly, the more visits from friends and family they can have, the better it is and the faster their recuperation is likely to be. We have commissioned 56 more beds, so the total number of beds commissioned for children is at a record 1,442, but we are determined to end out-of-area treatments by the end of this Parliament.
North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust
Charles Walker Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ben Gummer
I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that NHS England has a live rota stream from the hospital to give it the reassurance that every single junior doctor has a consultant supervisor in place at all times—precisely to ensure that the reported lapses of supervision do not recur. When the right hon. Gentleman meets the chief inspector at the CQC tomorrow, I hope that he hears something similar to what I have heard: things are not good, but they are better than they were, and the trajectory is in the right direction.
Nevertheless, we will not fix this without looking at fundamental reform of local health services, which requires changes to primary care, of the kind that we discussed when I met local Members of Parliament last week. I hope to meet them again, in a few weeks or months, and to be able to talk about progress and the plans for the future, so that right hon. and hon. Members will be satisfied that things are getting better at the North Middlesex.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I thank the Minister—my constituents in Broxbourne will be following the outcome of this debate closely.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the performance of North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust.