National Health Service: Mental Health Funding

Debate between Lord Cotter and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cotter]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of mental health treatment is funded by the National Health Service nationally as against local funding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O’Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to increasing spending on mental health. In 2017-18, the NHS spent an indicative figure of £11.86 billion on mental health. Of this total, £9.97 billion was locally funded by clinical commissioning groups, with the remainder for nationally commissioned specialised services.

[Lord Cotter (LD)]

I hear what the Minister says, but parity between mental and physical health remains a concern. He knows about the facility for mental health in Weston-super-Mare and the problems associated with its future. However, I have found this problem around facilities in local areas to be widespread throughout the country. Their funding is not predominantly mainstream NHS money for mental health services, but NHS money is often used to plug holes elsewhere and local mental health units are struggling. Will the Minister address the issues of parity and funding for local mental health care?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I agree with the noble Lord that we need to increase funding for local mental health services. That has been happening over the past few years; indeed, between 2015-16 and 2018-19 it has gone up by £1 billion. I turn to his point about mental health funding being used for other purposes. I want to be clear that there is NHS England guidance that that should not happen, and from this financial year all CCGs will have to meet what is called the mental health investment standard, which means that they are to increase their spending on mental health at least as much as, if not more than, their spending on physical health.

Children and Young People: Mental Health

Debate between Lord Cotter and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cotter]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in implementing the proposals for support for mental health provision for children and young people in schools, set out in the December 2017 Green Paper, Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, following publication of the Green Paper in December, we are working across health and education to explore options for implementing the proposals, which will be informed by responses from the consultation. This includes consideration of training programmes for the designated leads and mental health support teams, delivery of the four-week waiting time pilot and criteria and processes for selecting the trailblazers. We will publish a response to the consultation in due course.

[Lord Cotter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. As we all know, mental illness is an increasing concern. It is good that the Green Paper to which he referred has been produced. Appendix B refers specifically to schools and says that,

“68% have a designated member of staff”,

for mental health. However, does the Minister not agree that it is equally important that teachers are fully trained and involved in the process of dealing with mental health, since, unwittingly, they can exacerbate young people’s lack of confidence? For example, I heard recently of a young person who needs encouragement being told by a teacher, “Your mother did this work for you”. Teachers need training to deal with this issue.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord hits on an important point. Not only is mental illness unfortunately rising in prevalence, but it is everybody’s responsibility to try to help young people who suffer from it. That is what lies behind the proposals in the Green Paper, which contains a number of elements. He is quite right: there is additional training that will be applicable for all teachers, in mental health first aid, for example. It will also make sure that pupils understand it, changing the PHSE curriculum for more focus on mental health and well-being. That is why the designated leads are so important, because they bring that together at school level. So I agree with the noble Lord that schools have a critical role to play in dealing with this problem of mental health.

Mental Health Care: Vulnerable Children

Debate between Lord Cotter and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I think this picture of a fragmented service is one that the CQC report highlights. One of the ways in which the Government are trying to address that is through incentive payments in the tariff system to make sure that trusts are incentivised to join up care, particularly when children are moving from place to place.

[Lord Cotter (LD)]

The Minister mentioned concerns about mental health, but crisis teams are reported not to be available in all parts of the country for under-18s, who are very vulnerable. Will the Minister look into crisis teams not being available for under-18s in many parts of the country?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord is highlighting that there is a good deal of variation, which is again highlighted in the CQC review. I think that is what he is describing in terms of crisis teams. I will certainly look into that and write to him with more details.