NHS (Five Year Forward View)

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is totally unacceptable for someone with severe mental health problems to be placed in a police cell. We are making very good progress in reducing the use of police cells for that purpose, with the active support of the care services Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). In the specific case to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, a bed was available but there was poor communication on the ground, which is why we were not able to solve the problem as quickly as we would have liked. As soon as NHS England was informed of the problem, it was able to find a bed within, I think, about three hours. However, as he says, this is a problem that we must eliminate.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

If that amount of new money is indeed going into the NHS, will the Secretary of State tell us how much of it will be dedicated to—perhaps even exclusively used for—better delivery of mental health services, not least services for child and adolescent mental health patients?

Let me point out to the Secretary of State that this is not the first occasion on which the House has raised with the Government the total failure to provide adequate services for people with mental health issues. The matter was most recently highlighted at the weekend, but it has been highlighted in the Chamber more than once in the recent past. What the Secretary of State has said today certainly does not calm my fear that if my constituents need a mental health bed, they will not find one in London, and heaven only knows how many hundreds of miles they may have to travel before they do find that security.