Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, the reason there have been increased referrals to therapists is that this Government are investing in early intervention and ensuring we invest in improving access to the psychological therapies programme so we can get to people with mental health problems much earlier and give them better support before they reach the point of crisis.

If I may beg your indulgence for one second, Mr Speaker, on the hon. Gentleman’s specific point about gay to straight conversion therapy, I also find that absolutely abhorrent in principle, but the issue is—it is an important issue and he should listen to this—that if we were to ban or put in place regulations on that it may have unintended consequences. That may stop counsellors practising who are supporting people coming to terms with their sexuality. That is an important service, and I hope we can support it on both sides of this House.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the effect of social care budget changes on the number of accident and emergency attendances.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

13. What assessment he has made of the effect of social care budget changes on the number of accident and emergency attendances.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

Although councils have reduced social care budgets, the evidence suggests that this is not having an impact on the NHS. In fact, the data published by NHS England show that councils are getting better at getting people out of hospital at the appropriate time.

[Grahame M. Morris]

The National Audit Office reports that cuts to social care led to nearly 500,000 delayed bed days in accident and emergency in 2012-13, so will the Government see sense and commit to investing in lowering the eligibility threshold to moderate, ensuring that older and disabled people’s needs in Easington and throughout the country can be met in their community so they do not need to present to A and E causing further pressures on it?

[Dr Poulter]

Taking the hon. Gentleman’s question in the spirit he intends, I think there is a misunderstanding of the statistics. We need to reduce the pressure on A and E, and evidence from NHS England already shows that improvements in how social care works with the NHS over this Parliament are delivering improvements to care. In 2011-12 there were about 523,000 bed days lost because of delays attributable to social care, but in 2012-13 the number had fallen to 476,000, a drop of nearly 50,000. That shows that social care is working well to reduce pressure on A and E.