Mental Health Taskforce Report

Amanda Solloway Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on securing this important debate and affording us the opportunity to look more closely at the excellent mental health taskforce report.

I want to highlight some issues from the report. First, I completely agree that more children and young people should benefit from an increase in high-quality mental health support when they need it. The pressures on young people in today’s climate have too often been ignored. Social media, education, home life and even peer pressure have an astounding effect on young people. Those are just a few everyday factors that are often overlooked and may result in young people suffering in silence.

The report’s recommendations would give individuals the support that they need to overcome their difficulties and continue to develop their talents throughout their education, and subsequently their employment. Crucial to tackling mental health illness across the UK is the need to tackle individuals’ problems at an early age, and certainly when the first warning signs are elicited.

The second point I want to touch on is the NHS’s approach to identifying what steps services should take to ensure that all deaths by suicide across NHS-funded mental health settings are learned from to prevent repeat events. The NHS would be wise to learn from previous events, and it must ensure that the right investment is provided to help prevent people from taking their own lives. I know what it feels like to lose someone to suicide, including for the family.

The figures in the report also strike a note with me. It states:

“A quarter of people who took their own life had been in contact with a health professional, usually their GP, in the last week before they died.”

Indeed, when my cousin took his life, he was in contact with a GP and awaiting counselling. Even if we could save only one life, that would be one less family who would have to experience the heartbreak of losing a loved one. I am therefore pleased to hear that the recommendations outline a system in which more will be done to help GPs further understand the issues surrounding mental health. That will hopefully help to reduce the number of people who take their own life even having seen a healthcare professional in the weeks leading up to their death.

I was recently appointed to the position of rapporteur on mental health to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the first area I will be reporting on is self-inflicted deaths in custody among 18 to 24-year-olds. The taskforce report touches on the issue of mental health in prisons and in the time following release from prison. There is no denying that prison should be a punishment. However, the criminal justice system is a difficult place for people with mental health issues, and I welcome the proposals to improve mental health provision both for those currently serving a prison sentence and those who have recently been released. We need to ensure that we provide the appropriate support to help ease people back into society and help them forge a life away from crime.

Nine years ago today, my mum died at the age of 67, having fought all her life against mental health issues—she was in and out of several institutions—and it strikes me that we could have had her for another 12 years had some recommendations in the report been adhered to.

The NHS taskforce report covers many aspects of mental health, which is an issue that is impossible to address overnight. We need a strong, detailed and considered plan of action to be implemented over the coming years. The Government have highlighted mental health as a key priority, and I hope that by working with the NHS and the organisations and charities at the heart of mental health, we can produce an effective plan to improve mental health provision across the UK.