Mental Health Services for Rough Sleepers

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her Question and for her continued conversations with me on a number of different health-related issues; I am learning quite a lot from those. I understand that the data will be collected at some point, and I hope that that will be done regularly. If the noble Baroness will allow me, I write to her with more details, but I know that the top-level answer to that question is that we are about to get the data.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, about two-thirds of people who are homeless cite alcohol misuse as one of the reasons that first made them homeless, and for about one in 10 people who die homeless, alcohol is the main cause of death. Can the Minister assure us that all this work will include a proper alcohol treatment programme, so that the underlying problems are dealt with in addition to the other mental health problems?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes the very important point that a number of people who are homeless suffer from alcoholism and alcohol abuse—and indeed drug abuse. For some of these people, the issues they are suffering from are often interrelated. Therefore, in the joined-up thinking we are looking at, charities, civil society organisations and the NHS are making sure that we treat the various symptoms in an integrated way.