NHS: Mental Health Patient Assessment Needs

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

In picking up the general point that the noble Baroness made, the Government have committed a great deal of extra resource to the mental health needs of young people. For example, I cite the NHS mandate and the Health and Social Care Act 2012, in which there is a duty to establish parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. It is also true that one can never do enough, and when one hears about a tragic case such as that described by my noble friend earlier, one has to look very carefully in the mirror and ask whether one could do more. That is why I have offered to meet my noble friend outside this House to discuss the matter in more detail.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, on parity of esteem, is it not a fact that, in their allocations, clinical commissioning groups have reduced the proportion of resource going into mental health services? Will the Minister tell the House what he is going to do about that? He mentioned the mandate. He will know that, in 2012, the mandate said:

“By March 2015, we expect measurable progress towards achieving true parity of esteem”.

Can the Minister tell me that that progress has now been achieved?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I cannot tell the House that we have achieved parity of esteem. Demonstrably, across the country, we have not yet achieved parity of esteem, but we are on a journey to doing so. On the figures that the noble Lord raised, we spent £300 million more last year than the year before on mental health, and every CCG is spending more on mental health this year than the overall increase in their allocation. At the end of October, we will have the figures for the first six months, and perhaps then I can come back to the House and give him those figures in more detail.