Mental Health Treatment and Support

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

As you and my hon. Friend the Minister are aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, there has been a tragic, historic issue of in-patient mental health deaths in Essex—it goes back to 2000—over a 20-year period. Roughly 2,000 people have lost their lives. An inquiry has been going on, but, as I said in the House in January, there has been deep concern about the lack of progress and the low level of engagement between Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust and the inquiry. I also pointed out that families who have lost loved ones want to know that lessons have been learned, they want accountability, and, most important, they want to know that patients are not suffering the same today.

At the time, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), said that unless there was a

“quantum leap in the level of co-operation”—[Official Report, 31 January 2023; Vol. 727, c. 51WH.]

with the inquiry, it would move to a statutory basis. I know that the Secretary of State treats the matter seriously—he met Essex MPs recently and is close to making a decision—but it has now been four months since that debate, so may we please have a decision soon?

In the meantime, I recently met EPUT to find out what is happening with its service. I will tell some positive stories. In March, EPUT announced that it was going to launch a mental health urgent care unit in Basildon. We have all heard stories of people in mental health crisis going to A&E, waiting hours and hours, and then not getting the specialist service that they need, but that new specialist 24/7 centre saw 200 people in its first month. Instead of what happened historically in A&E—90% of people waiting a long time before being sent home without a care plan—90% of people see the experts within four hours and leave with a care plan. That is transformational. The unit is also piloting a 24-hour paramedic.

Demand in Essex is settling down. It rushed through the roof during covid but is now increasing in line with population growth. Complexity also rose during the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, about 30% of those going into in-patient units needed to be detained. At the peak of the pandemic and post pandemic, that figure was 70%. It is now down to 60%. Our waiting time to see a psychologist, which rose to a year, is now down to 29 weeks. Vacancies for all positions have been filled, so the trust will be fully staffed from September and expects the waiting list to drop to zero.

Furthermore, EPUT is trying new technologies such as the new and innovative neuromodulation centre, which opened six months ago in Brentwood and is having great success. The trust is also encouraged by the Government’s announcements on electronic patient records. Enabling hospitals and mental health services to share patient records easily between them will make a huge difference. It is great news that the Government are behind that, but we need the funding for it.

Colleagues have mentioned eating disorders. Some may be aware that I suffered from anorexia when I was a teenager. It is still very difficult to talk about one’s own mental health. I encourage everyone in the Chamber to please be mindful of the language that they use; I have found some of the language used so far in the debate very upsetting. I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) about being mindful of the tone that we use, because there will be people watching who are suffering with mental ill health, and we must not scare them away from getting treatment.

I am particularly concerned that what is being seen on social media today fuels eating disorders. The speed at which young girls in particular are shown eating-disorder content on social media by platforms such as TikTok is outrageous. I am glad that the Government are tackling that.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to mention social media, particularly in relation to teenage girls and eating disorders. I praise her for bringing her own experience to the Chamber. Another major contributor to the rise in mental ill health among young people in the last decade has been the isolation that social media can cause through bullying and so on.

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend is completely right about online bullying. It is so important therefore that we get the Online Safety Bill through—it must not be delayed too much, although there are still issues to be looked at in the Lords.

I am very pleased that Ministers have announced that they will criminalise the intentional encouragement of serious self-harm, including eating disorders. I would like them to look again at the toggle on/toggle off issue that I mentioned last time we debated this, and—on another issue that is having an impact on children—to take seriously the need to prevent children from accessing online pornography, which is of an increasingly violent nature. Those matters are all related to the mental health of the nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is with some trepidation that I rise to speak in this debate, given the expertise and experience we have heard from all parts of the Chamber so far. I draw particular attention to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who is no longer in his place but who shared his personal expertise as a clinician, and my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who kicked off the Back-Bench speeches from the Government Benches. He made a well-constructed speech that spoke to his expertise in campaigning for mental health so assiduously in this place. I pay tribute to everyone on both sides of the Chamber who has brought forward their own personal experience, their family experiences and their constituency experiences of mental health.

I will not reiterate everything that the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Watford said, but the parity of esteem we are working towards in this country is vital, as are the record investment of £2.3 billion that this Government have put into mental health and the extra doctors and nurses who will support people. Most of all, it is about reducing stigma in mental health. It is not unfortunate that we are doing so, but it does create more demand.

The shadow Minister said that the causes of poor mental health were complex, and they are, but she then went on to basically try to lay it all at the door of the Government. That is not remotely fair or accurate, because the statistics are complex too. We should welcome more demand from people who were previously undiagnosed, and we should recognise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) did a moment ago, that there have been societal changes, particularly with social media, which I referred to in my intervention.

At the very youngest ages, we are seeing an explosion in autism cases. I speak to the excellent Peter Pan Centre in my constituency, which deals with pre-school children with some of the most severe forms of autism, including those who are non-verbal. Next door is the excellent Merryfields special school, where a number of them end up going. Increasingly, those organisations are saying that the majority of their pupils are those with autism or autism spectrum disorder, and that simply was not the case 10 years ago. Again, that is probably because of better diagnosis—we do not fully understand the explosion in autism—but we must not assume that everything is to do with money being spent on things; it is to do with better understanding of mental health, more awareness and less stigma.

The pandemic affected the mental health of the entire nation, and I recognise that that has put a lot of pressure on young people in schools and universities, which I will talk briefly about as the Member who represents Keele University. On schools, I speak frequently with my heads and with parents who come to me trying to get statements for their kids. As we get a greater understanding of neurodiversity, there is obviously a real interaction between special educational needs and poor mental health. I was speaking to my county council yesterday, and the big issue is the availability of educational psychologists. My county council, Staffordshire, is doing a great job of training more of them itself, but that is a problem across the country, and we need to address it so that we can get children the help that they need with their education and their mental health earlier.

We have heard about the Department for Education funding and the training of senior mental health leads, with 400 already supporting more than 3 million children. There will be up to 500 next year, and more than 60% of state secondaries have a mental health lead. I want to see that get to 100% as soon as possible.

In my final couple of minutes, I will speak a little about universities, as the Member who represents Keele, which has 12,500 students. I am pleased that Keele has, as many universities do, a professional counselling and mental health team to support its students. More generally, the Higher Education Statistics Agency collects data from students on any disability that they have, including mental health conditions. In 2021-22, 416,000 UK students said they had a disability of some kind—that is 19% of UK students—and within that, 119,500 said they had a mental health condition, which is 5.5% of all UK students. That number is three and a half times higher than it was in 2014-15. Higher rates are found among women, undergraduates, full-time students and those in their second or later years. There is an issue here that we have to address, and I am pleased that the Government are doing so.

The covid pandemic fell heavily on students at university, particularly during the lockdowns and associated restrictions. At the height of the pandemic, many students, including those at Keele, struggled with the measures employed to prevent the spread of covid, particularly in university settings. Some had to socially isolate regularly and could not go home to see their parents. They were essentially locked in their room with nobody else there for a long time. Nightline, which co-ordinates student-run listening and information services, reported in November 2022 that it had recorded a 51% increase in calls in 2020-21. Numbers for the next year were 30% higher than that, which indicates that the pandemic has had a continuing effect on universities. I welcome that the Department for Education has asked the Office for Students to distribute £15 million for transition into university.

I am pleased with everything that the Minister said about what we are doing, and I end on the point that there is less stigma, which is a good thing, and if there are more people coming forward, that is a good thing too.