Suicide Prevention and the National Curriculum

Debate between Duncan Baker and James Wild

Monday 13th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing and leading such an important debate on the introduction of statutory suicide prevention teaching in our current RSHE curriculum. There have been many powerful contributions this afternoon, but none more powerful than having 3 Dads Walking actually with us in this Chamber. I also thank Mike, Tim and Andy for their incredible work on this campaign. Mr Owen is a fellow Norfolk man, although not from my constituency, so it is a great privilege to represent our county for him this afternoon, along with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) beside me. Their efforts have clearly not gone unnoticed, and they will have a huge and significant impact on children and young people in future.

I thank those in my constituency, particularly the many mental health campaigners who I speak to, and Caroline Aldridge, who I know will watch the debate. She lost her own son to mental illness and she has done so much for others. I have also spoken to many others who have told me about their personal experiences and the tragedy of losing a child to suicide. I am honoured to participate in the debate on their behalf.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to 3 Dads Walking, including Tim, who is from west Norfolk. They have raised money and, vitally, raised awareness of the issue and of the support that exists by getting us talking about it today. The Government have rightly committed to a review, which I welcome and which I know the Minister will consider carefully. Does my hon. Friend agree that it should hear directly from 3 Dads Walking and others who have been directly affected by suicide to inform its decision?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I agree entirely. It is imperative that those with personal experience help to shape any future review and legislation that comes forward about the issue.

Mental health and mental health illness is a personal yet often isolating journey, despite the increased openness of conversation on that issue, which affects one in four of us throughout our lifetimes. Early intervention can make an astounding difference to the lives of those suffering, especially children and young people. When researching for this debate, I was devastated to learn that one in six children aged five to 16 were identified as having a probable mental health problem in July 2020. That number is likely to have risen since.

A survey by YoungMinds found that suicide rates for young people aged 15 to 19 rose by a third between 2020 and 2021—from 147 to 198. Despite those staggering figures, about 70% of children and adolescents do not get appropriate interventions at an early enough age, which begs the question of how we can begin to overcome that.

As many hon. Members have said, one of the answers is to implement this change in our national curriculum. Since September 2020, RSHE has been a statutory part of the curriculum, yet suicide prevention, taught in a safe and age-appropriate way, is only optional. I am pleased that the Government, too, see the incredible value in supporting mental health, but I believe that a review of the RHSE curriculum is the right step to provide consistent mental health support across all schools nationally. Introducing statutory suicide prevention teaching in schools would not only target the group most affected by suicide—the under-35s, as we have heard many times this afternoon—but make sure that our children and young people are equipped as they move into adulthood.

According to research, one in three mental health problems in adults can be attributed to childhood experiences, with higher rates of depression, suicidal thoughts and anxiety disorders presenting in later life. Educating our children on mental health will surely only serve to benefit them later. Moreover, mental health teaching within structured school lessons will have incredible benefits through early intervention to prevent suicide, normalise mental health, as many have said, and encourage conversations with support systems, whether that be parents, teachers or external agencies such as Mind or Papyrus.

Furthermore, where better to start following Papyrus’s three key principles—support, equip and influence—than in the classroom? Teaching, of course, should be preventive, and extra care should be taken to signpost a source of support. Promoting positive mental health in schools, however, and putting in place support, including by working with external bodies, is a positive way forward. I have always believed that schools should have trained mental health first aiders within their staff, because the suicide figures that we are seeing today and have spoken about are too high. The wider support is there to provide suicide prevention teaching in schools, and I think this should be considered for implementation.

To conclude, supplying consistent mental health teaching across all schools nationally is a necessity. Although the Government have in the past said that they will be taking forward proposals to train designated senior leads for mental health in schools by 2025 and to fund mental health awareness training, the review of the RSHE curriculum to include suicide prevention should continue to be a priority for the Government. I think it should be brought in as quickly as possible.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn

Debate between Duncan Baker and James Wild

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered quality of care and the estate at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this important debate, which gives me the opportunity to highlight the significant improvements at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, while once again making the compelling case for it to be one of the new hospital schemes that the Government have committed to building. I also want to recognise the close interest that my hon. Friend the Minister has taken in QEH and to thank him for the many meetings and discussions we have had about it so far. Of course, I also encourage him to back the bid.

QEH serves 330,000 people across Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, providing a comprehensive range of specialist, acute and community-based services. It is a busy hospital, with 55,000 in-patient admissions, a quarter of a million out-patient appointments and 70,000 emergency department admissions last year. However, QEH has suffered from poor Care Quality Commission ratings and an historic lack of investment, and has therefore been in special measures for some time. However, under the leadership of Caroline Shaw, the chief executive, and the chairman, Steve Barnett—who is moving on shortly, having done a lot of good work—things have changed.

In the last three years, there have been significant improvements in care. However, you do not have to take my word for it, Mr Hosie; that was the verdict of the CQC’s report a month ago. The core services it inspected—medicine, urgent and emergency care, and critical care—were all rated good overall. Indeed, critical care was recognised as having outstanding elements in many areas. That means that QEH is now rated good in three domains: caring, well led and effective. The CQC found that

“Staff provided good care and treatment…treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of…individual needs…and made it easy for people to give feedback.”

The report shows how far QEH has come. As a result, the Care Quality Commission’s chief inspector of hospitals has recommended that QEH come out of special measures, which is very welcome for the area.

It is frankly remarkable that all this has been achieved during a period when covid posed such huge challenges to QEH and other hospitals, and to other parts of the health and social care sector. This has not happened by luck; it is due to the leadership, hard work and commitment of all the staff at QEH. I have seen that dedication at first hand when I have met doctors, nurses, the infection control teams, the porters and all the others who make up the hospital during my regular visits. I commend them for all that they have achieved in the report. As the CQC said, staff were

“passionate about…providing the best possible care for patients”,

and leaders understood

“the priorities and issues the trust faced”

and were

“visible and approachable…for patients and staff.”

Clearly further improvements are required, as the hospital recognises, but it is important that we acknowledge the huge step forward that has been taken, as reflected in the report.

Those improvements have been made despite the decaying and ageing buildings that staff and patients have to experience and operate in. As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, QEH is one of the best-buy hospitals and has major issues with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete planks—which I think we should refer to as RAAC planks for the rest of the debate—which are structurally deficient. The hospital was built with a 30-year design life, but it is now in its 42nd year. Some 79% of hospital estate buildings have RAAC planks, and I am sorry to say that it is the most propped hospital in the country, with 470 steel and timber supports across 56 parts of the hospital.

Being in a ward or another part of the hospital, surrounded by props holding up the roof, is a poor experience for patients. It makes it harder for staff to care for them. It is not something that we should accept, and we do not. This is a serious situation, and the trust’s risk register has a red rating for direct risk to life and the safety of patients, visitors and staff, due to the potentially catastrophic risk of failure of the roof structure. Last year, the critical care unit had to close for some weeks due to precisely those safety issues. The urgent need for a new hospital, and the strength of that case, is underlined by the fact that over a third of all reported RAAC issues in the east of England were at QEH in the last year.

I know that my hon. Friend recognises the seriousness of the situation, and the £20.6 million of emergency capital funding that he approved last year is very welcome. That is making a difference: a new endoscopy unit is taking shape to modernise facilities, and to create space to enable installation of fail-safe roof supports. In addition, there is £3 million of funding for a west Norfolk eye centre, which along with other projects, including digital, means that QEH is currently delivering a more than £30 million capital programme.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this incredibly important debate. It is a very poor situation to have a hospital in Norfolk in this position, when it clearly needs a rebuild. I thank my hon. Friend for everything he has done; we would not be in this position without his tireless work to raise this matter with the Secretary of State. May I raise one point? We have three hospitals in Norfolk. We want a new hospital at QEH. That will benefit not just his constituents, but those all over Norfolk, particularly in my constituency of North Norfolk, who will also use its fantastic services when it is rebuilt.

[James Wild]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support and words. He is absolutely right; I think his constituency has the oldest average age in the country, and that poses particular needs. My constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), who has joined to support the debate, also have challenges, so we need to ensure that the care is in place. There is also a lot of planned housing growth in the area. The demand is strong across our constituencies, and in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, which is why it is important to show the strength of support for the hospital across Norfolk and beyond.

When compared with the turnover, the level of capital programme is significant, and it is important to acknowledge that the programme is being managed well. QEH has submitted a further bid for £18 million for an orthopaedic centre, as part of the funding to tackle the backlog. Given that it is the area with one of the longest waiting lists for QEH, I strongly endorse that bid, and encourage the Minister to approve it when it comes to his desk. Seeing is believing. When the Secretary of State visits QEH—which he has agreed to and I hope will happen soon—he will see those improvements, but he will also see the props and the very real need for investment. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) will be able to join him on that occasion or another, as he will be very welcome.

As well as the structural issues, the hospital has outgrown its footprint. The emergency department sees 70,000 patients a year—more than double what it was designed for. The layout of the hospital does not meet modern care pathways, with too few consulting rooms, and wards well below the recommended size.