Mental Health Services (Norfolk and Suffolk)

Debate between Dan Poulter and Sandy Martin

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker for granting this debate on mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk and the challenges they face.

Quite rightly, the Government have talked a lot over the last few years about parity of esteem between mental and physical health and about the need to invest more in mental health services. Indeed, there has been limited extra investment in Norfolk and Suffolk. None the less, the NHS trust has faced challenges that are affecting the quality of patient care. Tonight is a good opportunity to bring before the House some of those issues and, hopefully, to offer some solutions and appeal to the Government to do more to help the trust in very difficult times, because ultimately it is the patients who suffer when trusts are in difficult circumstances.

First, I would like to pay tribute to Gary Page, who is the chair of the Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust. Despite very challenging circumstances, difficult Care Quality Commission reports and the financial pressures that have faced services in Norfolk and Suffolk for many years, he has worked hard to make sure that there has been continuity. It is thanks to his leadership that the trust is now able to move forward and address some of the challenges that it faces with the quality of care.

I want to talk briefly about some of the issues involved, focusing mainly on ward closures and the points raised in the CQC report. I want to outline to the House some of the fundamental issues with staff shortages, which are probably the worst in almost any mental health trust in the country. I want to talk a little further about the finances of the trust, and I also want to talk about some of the difficulties there have been in how the trust works with addiction services and how that is counterproductive to the effective care and treatment of patients.

Although my medical work is not currently in the east of England, I want to draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a practising NHS doctor working in mental health services, which of course gives me some insight into the challenges faced by the trust, although I do not think that interest is particularly applicable in this case, because my medical work is not done in the region.

The quality of care challenges facing the trust are quite extensive. As the Minister will be aware, the trust was put into special measures in October 2017. There are significant pressures on beds within local services, resulting in higher numbers of out-of-area placements for patients. Many patients are now having to be transported out of area to be treated because of the closure of beds, which is not good medical practice. It is not good for patients either, because they will be a long way away from their support networks, and it interferes with the effective post-hospital care and rehabilitation that is so important in co-ordinating with community services.

The challenges appear to centre on patient flow into beds and delays to discharge. We know that there is a historical lack of community mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk, and investment has not been available to increase them at the necessary speed and rate. There are challenges with housing providers in the area not necessarily working closely enough with the trust, and there are also the pressures on social services that we know too well exist across the country. Those pressures are very relevant in Norfolk and Suffolk, where we have a lot of older patients with dementia who are struggling to be discharged effectively into the community because of delays in receiving adequate social services. A lot of the blame for that has been attributed to the mental health trust, but many factors are beyond its control.

The trust also faces significant challenges with the quality of its buildings infrastructure. Many of its buildings are old and not fit for purpose. The capital budget has not been available to improve the buildings, although there has been some new building work. I will come on to that in a moment.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

My meetings over the past three weeks with the new chief executive and others have given me cause to hope that the structural problems are now being addressed. A new co-produced community services partnership, commissioned by the clinical commissioning groups and involving Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, Ipswich and West Suffolk hospitals, the county council and the GP federation, is embarking on a level of integration that has never been tried before in the United Kingdom, working with district councils, schools and the voluntary sector to make mental health everyone’s business. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government have a real interest in seeing whether that model can succeed? Will he support me in calling on the Minister to provide sufficient pilot funding for the project, so that Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust can recruit the staff it needs to make the new model capable of success?

[Dr Poulter]

I thank my constituency neighbour for that intervention. I entirely agree with everything he says, although I am not sure it is quite so pioneering—I think the hospitals in London would probably disagree with that. There is a lot of good work going on in London built around exactly that sort of model of more integrated care.

One of the challenges faced by the trust in the past, and which mental health trusts in general face, is the failure of many partner organisations to properly engage on issues such as the provision of adequate social care for patients with chronic and long-term mental illness and dementia. There is also the failure of housing providers to be involved and of the police to be properly involved. There is a big overlap between some people with mental ill health and presentation to the police, when they would be better looked after by the NHS.

This project is the right way forward, with more integration of services and better integration between mental and physical health. Many patients with chronic mental health needs have physical health problems. They are sometimes a side-effect of the drugs, but are often a result of a chaotic lifestyle. Better joined-up working with the local NHS undoubtedly has to be a good thing. For that to be effective, however, as we have seen in some pilot projects in London, there needs to be the funding to deliver it. The mental health trust is not in the best financial shape—I will come on to that later—and support from the Government through funding for this innovative way of working, which I think is certainly a first in a rural area, would be very welcome. I hope the Minister may be able to provide some reassurance on that this evening.