Covid-19: Mental Health Services

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Bishop of Coventry

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, at least one of the churches in my diocese recently set up a mental well-being centre, providing support groups, a helpline and signposting to professional services. Has the Minister considered inviting churches and other faith communities, with their knowledge of, trust within and connections to the local community, including networks of young people, to participate in the response to the mental health needs caused by Covid-19?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The right reverend Prelate makes a good point, and I thank very much indeed those from all faith groups who have provided important pastoral support during this difficult time. On a practical matter, the funding for the mental health projects from our £5 million fund has gone to 130 different charities through the coronavirus mental health response fund. We are assessing the impact of those and we look forward to the recommendations of the Mind and mental health consortia which are behind that fund.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Bishop of Coventry

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

To be clear to the noble Lord, the dashboard was made available on 22 June. It has a very large amount of local information, including information from 111, hospitals and the test and trace programme. The analysis of the data will be enhanced using the latest technology in order to give the most granular information possible. Those enhancements will be rolled out very shortly.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, the Minister said that data required by local authorities is given to them, but I am told by the leader of Coventry City Council and our director of public health that, although data sharing has improved over the past two weeks, it still comes from different sources and does not include data on workplaces and other settings that people regularly visit or, as we have heard, on ethnicity. Can the Minister provide further assurances that local authorities will be supplied with the full data that they need to respond to local outbreaks in a streamlined form and at an early point?

[Lord Bethell]

The right reverend Prelate is right that bringing together data from a very large number of sources is a challenge. One could include social media data, digital tracking data, hospital data and 111 data. We are working on systems that bring all the possible data one could imagine to one place at the joint biosecurity centre. We have made huge strides on that, but there is work to be done, and we are very much focused on it.