Mental Health Services for Rough Sleepers

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the £30 million programme to provide specialist mental health services for people sleeping rough, as detailed in the NHS Long Term Plan; and what plans they have to publish an evaluation of the outcomes of that programme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

This Government are committed to ending rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament. The long-term plan set a target of 20 high-need areas to receive new specialist mental health provision for people sleeping rough by 2023-24. In fact, the NHS has exceeded that target, with 23 sites. There are plans to share learning from these sites to identify the key successes and effective approaches, and NHS England plans to undertake a formal evaluation before the end of the programme.

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[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (CB)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer and look forward very much to the publication of that work. We know that common mental health conditions are twice as high among people who have experienced homelessness, and psychosis is 15 times as high. Obviously, I commend the Government’s commitment to end rough sleeping. Does the Minister know what figure has been settled on for the number of people sleeping rough with specialist mental health services needs? If one has been settled on, is that the criterion that will be used to review progress with the NHS long-term plan when that is refreshed?

[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.