Mental Health Budget: Domestic and Sexual Violence

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much of the National Health Service mental health budget goes towards intervention to address domestic and sexual violence and abuse.

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

My Lords, it is not possible to provide a precise figure because expenditure is not identified by cause of health condition. Abuse victims accessing services are not identified separately: they receive treatment based on clinical need rather than on the cause of their condition. However, the NHS is expanding psychiatric liaison services in A&E, in which staff are trained to assess the risk to patients of violence. Sexual assault referral centres then provide health support to victims and have £31 million of funding in 2018-19.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Given that the Government have recognised the scale of the mental health challenge, particularly for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and have put some money aside for this area to be spent at local level, how do they plan to ensure that the funding is available and gets to the refuges and organisations on the front line that are desperate to tackle this desperate need?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her recognition of the work that is going on in funding. It is important to point out that NHS England published a sexual assault and abuse strategy this April. That involved funding for sexual assault referral centres and a range of other innovations, including an Identification and Referral to Improve Safety project, which has now been rolled out in 800 GP practices. So work is going on not only to roll out these kinds of services but to make sure that many more victims are coming through to them. I know that the Women’s Mental Health Taskforce is due to report later this month and I will speak to my colleague, Jackie Doyle-Price, who is the lead Minister, to find out if we can give more specificity on how we track the number of users of these kinds of services.