Mental Health Services: Serving Military Personnel

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the support available to serving military personnel with mental health problems, and what plans they have to establish a 24-hour mental health helpline for serving soldiers.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Ministry of Defence is absolutely committed to looking after the mental health of our Armed Forces and provides a range of community-based healthcare in line with national best practice. Out-of-hours care already includes the free 24-hour mental health helpline run by the charity Combat Stress, which receives funding from the MoD, and the Big White Wall, which is a 24-hour online community. There are therefore no plans to provide an additional helpline.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. Will he say whether the Government consider it satisfactory that serving Armed Forces personnel are currently having, and under current plans will continue to have, to rely on support from the charitable sector for urgent mental health issues which occur outside of Monday to Friday normal office hours? With the very best will in the world, those charities will not have access to the in-house mental health records, know about their situations or the medication that they are taking.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there is no point in duplicating a service that already works very well. We work in close partnership with Combat Stress, which provides an extremely effective service, and, if necessary, signposts the individual to the right service according to need. There are helplines available for veterans as well, which we run on a 24-hour basis, but we do not see the need and there is no evidence that we should be looking at duplicating that service.