Mental Health: Parity of Esteem

Earl Howe Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made to measure the success of their policy No Health Without Mental Health, which undertook to give mental health “parity of esteem” with physical health within the National Health Service.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, our commitment to parity of esteem is explicit in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. As stewards of the system, we hold the NHS to account for the quality of services and outcomes for patients through our mandate to NHS England and the NHS outcomes framework.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that the picture is fairly gloomy. There has been a real-terms 1% drop in investment in mental health services for adults of working age, and mental health trusts have reported a real-terms reduction of 2.36% over the past two years. Investment across the three priority areas—crisis resolution, early intervention and assertive outreach—has seen a £30 million drop for the first time. Funding for older people in mental health services has seen a 1% real cash-terms drop, and 67% of councils have stopped child and adolescent mental health services funding. These cuts have come in at a time when more people—almost 8 million—are experiencing mental health problems. In addition, 30% are suffering from a long-term physical health problem, the number of deaths by suicide is increasing and mental health ward occupancy levels are at over 100%. This Government promised parity of esteem and we were assured that that would be in the Health and Social Care Act. Does the Minister agree that we are far from meeting our obligations on this simply because of the cuts and what has happened to these vulnerable people?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, mental health and mental well-being are priorities for the Government; I want to make that clear to the noble Lord. We have legislated for parity of esteem between mental and physical health, and we mean business on this. Our new mental health action plan, which has been well received, sets out our priorities for essential change. We have the Crisis Care Concordat, which guarantees that no one experiencing a mental health crisis should ever be turned away. We are rolling out choice in mental health, which is an extremely important step forward, and a whole range of other measures, including IAPT and the children’s mental health measures that I outlined a moment ago. I hear what the noble Lord says about funding. We have debated that matter in the House before. We are currently scrutinising local CCG spending plans to make sure that mental health gets the priority that it needs.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that everyone welcomes the fact that mental health has emerged at last to receive the attention that it should be getting. However, will the Minister confirm that the Government are paying particular attention to the number of women in prison with a mental health problem? In previous decades, that was not addressed at all.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, yes, we are doing so. We are paying attention not just to women in prison but to women and men in prison and in the criminal justice system more generally. We have committed £25 million to introduce a new liaison and diversion scheme in England to identify and assess the health issues and vulnerabilities of all offenders when they first enter the criminal justice system, which I think is the crucial moment. We are building on liaison and diversion services to improve the quality of those services and their coverage across England, and we are trialling a core model in more than 20 areas over the next two years with the aim of moving towards comprehensive rollout by 2017.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that one in 10 children between the ages of five and 16 has a mental health problem and may continue to have problems into adulthood? What are the Government doing to ensure that child and adolescent mental health services are properly funded by NHS England and CCGs?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are investing £54 million over the four-year period from 2011 to 2015 in the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, CYP IAPT, programme. That, along with the measures that I referred to earlier, will, I hope, give a sense of the priority that we attach to children and young people’s mental health services.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister gave us a long list of things that the Government are doing. However, he does not mention research into mental health. Is not one of the key problems that clinicians are never able to identify the disease phenotype, and that makes further and better treatments impossible? Should there not be much more emphasis on the need to research mental ill health throughout the country?

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is quite right about the importance of mental health research. Unfortunately I do not have the figures in my brief, but I will gladly write to him on the research that is currently under way which my department is helping to fund.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister do what he can in government to lock in the policy of the programme that he has announced today? I remind him that—I think it was in 2004—the former Social Exclusion Unit published a seminal report on mental health and social exclusion, with 27 action programme recommendations. As Ministers come and go and as civil servants get recycled, things go off the boil and we have to start doing it all over again. That does not serve the citizens of the country on an issue such as this, which transcends all our other divisions. We need to concentrate on it so that we do not lose it as people come and go.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is right and I can say to him that the coalition Government have tried as far as possible to continue the good work on mental health of the previous Administration. One has to keep renewing the momentum on this. Situations do not stand still, and that is why our new mental health action plan Closing the Gap reminds everyone in the system of the most important gains to be made in 25 areas where people can expect to see and experience the fastest changes. I am glad to say that that document has been well received by all stakeholders.