Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Debate
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Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Diana Johnson Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Norman Lamb
If the diary allows I am certainly up for that, and I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work she has done in her county in trying to improve children’s mental health services. We must do that across the country, and there are many examples of real and significant improvements.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
We are discussing young people, and Natalie Carmichael has e-mailed me. She is 17, lives in Hull and suffers from anorexia nervosa, yet she had to go to Manchester—more than two and a half hours away—to access 24-hour care. She states:
“The illness itself is distressing enough…but I feel it made it ten times more traumatic the fact that I was hundreds of miles away from home and I couldn’t reach to my family for comfort and support in the tough experience I was battling.”
What does the Minister say to Natalie?
Norman Lamb
I find it as intolerable as she does, and that is why we are investing to improve access to beds in the locality. Indeed, we identified the hon. Lady’s region as an area where there were shortages of beds for children and young people’s mental health, and we have taken action to increase that number.