Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right to highlight the fact that we need more staff to meet the mental illness burden in society, which is sadly growing. I hope that she will have seen that Health Education England has announced that there will be 21,000 more mental health staff by 2021, of which 13,000 will be qualified clinical staff, including 700 more doctors. The warning she has made has been heard loud and clear and those changes have been made.

If I may, I would like to use this opportunity to say that I made a mistake in my previous answer, when I talked about there being 21,000 people eligible for flu jabs. If that really was true, that would be a poor place to be. It is actually 21 million, which is slightly more reassuring.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to ask the Minister about the 700,000 young carers, who often have severe mental health needs because of the stress of the duties they undertake, as he will know. We had high hopes of specific action for young carers in the refreshed carers strategy, but I understand that this is being rolled up into the consultation on the social care Green Paper. I am concerned and would like to be reassured that the Government have not abandoned the long-awaited carers strategy. If we are waiting for the social care consultation, how will he ensure that the mental health needs of young carers are urgently addressed?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I know that the noble Baroness cares passionately about this group of people. My understanding is that those policy issues are being considered in the round with the social care consultation. I shall write to her to clarify that point. She might like to know that, in the upcoming Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health, there will be an expansion of some of the work that has already gone on around providing mental health first aid and various other things in schools, which will capture some of the young people that she is talking about.