National Health Service: Mental Health Funding

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

My noble friend is absolutely right to highlight this issue. Individually, our emergency workers did extraordinary deeds of bravery, for which we are all deeply grateful, during the Grenfell fire. In the aftermath of that fire, the north-west London mental health service was the lead trust in providing mental health support for not just the families and individuals who were victims of the fire but emergency service workers who had been through that very traumatic experience. I strongly encourage any emergency service workers who are experiencing trauma—of course, that can happen many months, indeed years, afterwards—to get in contact with mental health services.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that £1 spent today on child and adolescent mental health services is likely to save the NHS a considerable number of pounds in the future? What proportion of the money spent on mental health services is going to child and adolescent services? Will that proportion increase in the future?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness makes an excellent point. The emerging science tells us that heading off mental illness in adolescence is critical to ensuring that it does not deepen and become more severe in later life, with great human as well as economic cost. At the moment, the mental health budget for children and young people does not reflect the burden that children and young people have, which is why the Prime Minister announced an extra £1.4 billion for children and young peoples’ services, as well as £300 million on top of that to support the plans set out in the child mental health Green Paper.