(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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May I first pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her inspiring work on suicide? Not many people in the House focus on issues that are talked about so seldom, so I pay tribute to her for the brilliant leadership she has shown. The all-party group’s report provides some really interesting and important questions of the sort that she has put to me today. These are questions that we need to ask. We have not yet established that link, but I think that it enables us to start asking local areas those questions. The Deputy Prime Minister has talked about the ambition of avoiding every suicide. We can improve services across the board by focusing much more on preventing conditions deteriorating to the point where someone becomes so desperate that they choose to take their own life.
I welcome the Government’s announcement of an extra £7 million, although I do not know whether it will be enough. I am very pleased, on behalf of constituents in Devon and Cornwall, that we have a new facility opening in Torquay—it is not yet fully open—and hope that the Minister can visit it. I also welcome the fact that he is reviewing the place of safety designation, although I question whether that actually requires legislation. The case that occurred in my constituency raised something that he has not yet mentioned: the problem that a person trying to find an appropriate place has no central register to look at. If we want a hotel room, we can go online and find a vacancy, but finding a vacancy in an appropriate setting seems to take an enormous amount of time.
The case in my hon. Friend’s constituency highlighted an incredibly important issue. The lessons that are being learned as a result of that incident will result in improved co-ordination and reducing the risk of that sort of thing happening. It was completely intolerable that that young girl ended up in a police cell for that length of time, and we should all be completely clear about that. The crisis care concordat makes the objective clear. We asked every area to sign up—and every area did so by December—to committing to implement the standards in the concordat, one of which is to end the practice of under-18s going into police cells. I think we need to go further and ban it in law.
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe truth is that the Government inherited a completely fragmented NHS; we had managed institutionally to separate health care from social care, mental health from physical health and primary care from secondary care. At the heart of the legislation we have already passed and the proposed social care legislation, which we hope to introduce very soon, is the principle of integrated care. I am determined that that should be central in every area of the country so that we deliver proper care and avoid crises, keeping people out of hospital.
T5. The South Devon and Torbay clinical commissioning group is building on the integrated health and social care system for which many have praised the area. Will the Minister help complete the integration by assisting with the inclusion of mental health care services within the regime?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and applaud the brilliant work that has been done in Torbay. There has been a reduction in hospital admissions because they care for people better. As I said in my last answer, it is essential that we integrate mental health in the system as well as physical health so that we give people proper care.