Mental Health Act: CQC Report

Debate between Dennis Skinner and Jackie Doyle-Price

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend will be aware that, in addition to this annual review of how the Act operates, the CQC is also involved in inspections at individual provider level. Those institutions that are not performing to the standards that we expect are under close scrutiny by the CQC. In fact, I have had exchanges on the Floor of the House about some of them. I repeat my point about the spirit in which we embrace the challenges offered in the report. We have asked the CQC to undertake this annual report precisely so that we can ensure that the Mental Health Act is operating properly, and I actually welcome its frankness. I do not run away from the criticisms in the report, because it highlights exactly where we need to take action.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

If everything in the garden is lovely for mentally ill people, why am I constantly told by people in my constituency that another Government Department—namely, the Department for Work and Pensions—is getting loads of people who are mentally ill to be reassessed, having been out of work for several years in some cases? If the Government want to help mentally ill people, somebody should tell the DWP to stop sending these mentally sick people for reassessment.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The first thing I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that I am not pretending that everything is rosy. One of the reasons we are making this such a priority is precisely because it is not, and we are determined to deliver improvement. He mentions the DWP, but I do not think that we should write people with mental illness off and say that they can never work again. It is in that spirit that we are working with the DWP to look at where we can help people, through person-centred interventions, to get back into work if they are able to do so. That is exactly what we are doing, and I hope that it will become very successful.