Mental Health Services: Haringey

Alistair Burt Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)]

I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this debate on an issue that I know is important to him and his constituents. I thank him for his courtesy in letting us see a copy of his speech; that was much appreciated. I also thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for raising the issues that she did.

I have to say that I have a soft spot for Haringey. Shortly before I first came to Parliament, 33 years ago, I was in the Hornsey and Wood Green Young Conservatives, and was a councillor in the London borough of Haringey, which taught me a great deal about the issues faced by an outer London borough with inner London problems. I still very much remember that time and the work that was done by very good councillors who were trying to do their best in that area.

My speech will necessarily be short, but I say right at the beginning that I share the concerns expressed by both colleagues. I will ensure that the meeting that the right hon. Gentleman was looking for takes place. He raised a number of detailed current issues in Haringey, which really need the specialist advice of those involved in the NHS and the clinical commissioning group. Unfortunately, it has not been possible for them to find time to speak to me in the last couple of days before this debate—I appreciate that it has been a very busy time in the NHS—but I know that they will find time, at the senior level, to meet him, me and others at Richmond House, at a time that we will put together as soon as we can. That will enable us to go into rather more detail on some of the issues that I simply will not be able to touch on today.

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s passion, which he illustrated very well in his speech, about these important issues. Some raise national issues; I will touch on those briefly, as they are important. I can understand his frustration about hearing comments made from a Dispatch Box about national amounts of money and then seeing what happens locally. I have got used to going round the country, talking about what successive Governments—in particular, the coalition Government and ourselves—have done and how there has been an increase in investment, and hearing people say, “Well, not round here, there hasn’t.” That is a very real issue: we must make sure that what we commit to flows through to the local NHS and CCGs. We are on to that in terms of monitoring and transparency, and can discuss it further when we meet.

I am very proud of what we are currently doing on mental health. We are investing unprecedented amounts, with spending expected to increase to £11.7 billion. CCGs are required to continue increasing their spend on mental health each year, and we are watching them. We have committed to investing £1.4 billion on children and young people’s mental health, and eating disorders. That will be spent by the end of this Parliament. The Prime Minister has said that an additional £1 billion will be spent to improve perinatal health, mental health liaison and 24/7 crisis care; I am grateful for the welcome that the right hon. Gentleman gave to that. Mental health really is a priority for all of us.

We have had the conclusions of the Mental Health Taskforce. The Department has accepted the recommendations directed at ourselves, as has the NHS. I am making sure that there is transparent delivery, and there will be constant reference back to the recommendations, so that people will be able to see what is actually being done, in order to counter the scepticism.

As for what the hon. Lady said, first, the issue of suicide is extremely important. I have asked for local suicide prevention plans to be revamped. We have a national suicide prevention strategy, but we do not have local suicide prevention plans in every area. That will change. She is right to talk about the link with homelessness. We need to do much more, and I am grateful to Samaritans, Cruse and all those in our national health service and other agencies who work hard on this issue. Crisis care concordats are in place everywhere—that was one success from the time of the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb)—and they have placed a renewed focus on crisis and suicide prevention. I am glad that the hon. Lady mentioned carers because they are also important. Indeed, she could hold an entirely separate debate on those three issues, and I urge her to secure one so that we can discuss them.

In Haringey we introduced the first waiting time standards for mental health, starting with psychological therapies this year. Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust exceeded the standards for improving access to psychological therapies, with 90% of patients treated within six weeks of referral, and 99% within 18 weeks. In February 57% of patients referred for early intervention psychosis received treatment within two weeks, which exceeded the minimum standard set at 50%. This is not as simple as pulling a lever because capacity must be built up over time—that is something we should discuss. I, too, watched the “Panorama” programme, and the Haringey example well illustrated the national pressures.

One of the three priorities in Haringey clinical commissioning group’s health and wellbeing strategy 2015 to 2018 is improving mental health and wellbeing. In Haringey an estimated 3,000 children and young people have some kind of mental health problem at any time, and more than 34,500 adults have a common mental disorder such as anxiety or depression. About 4,000 adults with a severe mental illness live in Haringey.

Over the next three years the CCG aims to ensure that people living with mental illness experience a more seamless service from hospital to GP. It intends to strengthen support for people to manage their mental ill health in primary and community care settings. Just over £34 million funding has been awarded to mental health services in Haringey—an increase of 9% since 2013-14. Of that, £31 million is for Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust. In 2013 to 2014, compared with 11 other CCGs in north and central London, Haringey spent the fifth highest proportion of its budget on mental health.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned St Ann’s and in-patient mental health beds have reduced there, as they have over the whole country in line with national policy. That has taken place as more appropriate alternatives have been developed in the community, and the trust has used a number of private bed placements owing to capacity constraints. The trust is also operating at extremely high levels of bed occupancy, and it is working with the CCG to reduce that. There will be a new development at St Ann’s hospital, for which an outline planning application was given in March 2015. NHS Improvement is working with the trust and its partners to develop a strategy for mental health estates across the sector, and we can discuss that in more detail.

I do not wish to conclude without mentioning equality and diversity. We know that different ethnic groups have different rates and experiences of mental health problems. Black people across Barnet, Enfield and Haringey were the subject of four times as many applications to be detained under section 2 of the Mental Health Act in 2014-15 as they constituted a proportion of the population at the 2011 census. The trust’s rate is broadly in line with national data and reflects a wider challenge that is the subject of extensive national research and action.

Our commitment to tackling inequalities in access to mental health services is set out in the mental health action plan “Closing the Gap”, published in January 2014, and the mental health taskforce made that a central issue in its recommendations. This week I met a group to discuss issues of equality and diversity in mental health. It was the first meeting that I have had on the back of the mental health taskforce, illustrating the priority that I attach to the issue, and we are working up some proposals for that. Along with our commitment to the other recommendations, the right hon. Gentleman will not find us lacking in commitment to deal with this issue, and I know how important it is. We also want to ensure that BME communities have access to more important psychological therapies, and we are working with the sector to find out why they have had less access to them, and what we can do to change that.

We have heard about the challenges facing mental health services in Haringey. The Government are committed to transforming mental health, and ensuring that patients receive the best treatment. I mentioned our initiatives at local level, and it is clear that Haringey is working hard to address those challenges, but there are many. Therefore, when we get together with a group of MPs and senior representatives of the NHS and trusts, we will discuss this matter with a little more time and detail. I look forward to that meeting, and will do my best to help the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady in their quest to support their constituents still further.

Question put and agreed to.