Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

T3. I am sure that the Deputy Prime Minister will agree that for far too long there has been an emphasis in NHS mental health services on crisis management rather than on the prevention and the community support that patients require. Will he outline what steps the Government are taking to address this problem and properly to look after patients with mental health problems in the community?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. I hope he has noticed that the operating framework recently published by the Department of Health for the NHS in England sets out priorities for the NHS that, for the first time, stipulate the expansion of access to psychological services as part of the overall commitment to the full roll-out of the improving access to psychological therapies programme by 2015. I know that the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), has dedicated a lot of time to this. I say to Members on both sides of the House who spoke in that very moving debate recently on mental health that they played a remarkable role in breaking down some of the taboos by speaking about an issue that afflicts one in four people in his country and which has often been kept in the shadows, leaving people to suffer in silence. It is finally being talked about in a more grown-up and open way.