Mental Health Taskforce

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating this Statement. The final report, which came out recently, gave a very frank assessment of the state of current mental health services and describes a system which is said to be ruining some people’s lives. It is entirely consistent with the report by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on acute in-patient psychiatric care. It makes a number of recommendations which, if implemented in full, could make a significant difference to services that have had to contend with funding cuts and staffing shortages as demand has continued to rise, leaving too many vulnerable people without the right care and support.

We return to a question which was debated yesterday: the £1 billion by 2021. A number of questions remain unanswered. Can the Minister confirm that there is no actual, additional money other than the existing £8 billion that has been set aside for the NHS up to 2020, as previously announced by Her Majesty’s Treasury? Given that mental health services receive just under 10% of the total NHS budget, surely these services would actually expect to receive much of this additional money anyway, as part of the NHS settlement. Will the Minister explain how this can be expected to deliver the transformation that he and the task force say is urgently required?

In a recent Oral Question, there was the usual discussion of whether there should be a national debate about NHS funding. The Government need to get on, not just to debate it but to ensure that the NHS has enough money. Has the Minister studied the advice given by Professor Don Berwick, the Government’s safety adviser? He said, “I know of no nation that is seeking to provide healthcare at the level that western democracies can at 8% of GDP, let alone 7% or 6.7%. That may be impossible”. His advice to the Secretary of State was that it is crucial that the Government reflect on whether they have overshot on austerity. What is the Minister’s response to his own safety adviser?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, we have strayed somewhat from the subject. On the money, the Prime Minister announced an extra £1 billion in January. It is the same £1 billion and is within the £8 billion—or £10 billion—that was in the settlement in November. The Government asked Paul Farmer to set out in his report where the priorities are and where the money should be spent, and that is exactly what has happened. Interestingly, I saw Don Berwick last week. He is a very distinguished American with a lot of experience in patient safety and health improvement. There is no question: it is going to be tough. It will be very difficult to do on around 7% of GNP, but there is absolutely no doubt, from the work of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and others, that there is a lot to go at. If it was not tough, we would not be going at it. We must take advantage of the fact that it is going to be tough by addressing some of the difficult issues which we should perhaps have addressed in the past but did not.