Gregory Campbell
Main Page: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)Department Debates - View all Gregory Campbell's debates with the HM Treasury
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing the debate and on the compassionate way she introduced it. She clearly cares, and I thank her for that.
I have been involved with this subject with some of my constituents, and I want to talk about two examples. One was not successful, and one was—I use that term loosely. I am my party’s health spokesperson, and I have been directly involved in those two cases. I have knowledge of them, so I want to comment on them.
An estimated 360 adults and 90 children are referred to specialist community eating disorder services each year in Northern Ireland. Those truly monumental and horrendous figures indicate the health problem. The figures for the past five years have increased by 92%, which indicates that we need to focus on this issue through the Department of Health and Social Care. I look to the Minister to make a suitable response that will give us heart.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the startling increase in the past five to 10 years indicates that we need even more research about the underlying reasons for the problem, so we can assess it? We must not have a superficial response to it.
Jim Shannon
I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for his intervention. He is absolutely right: we do need to raise awareness, and I think this debate will do that. We also need to raise awareness within health services so that they can give the correct diagnoses earlier for such conditions.
I will give some examples, if I may. During my research for the debate, I was distraught to learn that a young lady from Ballynahinch, whose family are from Killyleagh in my constituency, lost her fight against her eating disorder: in March, she died of a heart attack at age 21. She had been struggling with the eating disorder since 2009—that is horrendous. I will share her mum’s interpretation of it, which I read in an article that she wrote for the Belfast Telegraph; it outlined the problems with treatment in Northern Ireland. I know that that is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I just want to show that our problems are similar to those on the mainland—I do not think location matters much; problems are replicated across Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.
In the Belfast Telegraph article, we read that beautiful Sophie Bridges was 14 when she was referred to the NHS children and adolescent mental health service. The words of her mother are clear:
“Absolutely pathetic. It’s no reflection on anybody who works there, they try their best, but she was discharged on her 16th birthday. She was no better, she was just above the age for their service. She was still too young, though, for the adult service and had nowhere to go.”
That is one of the problems: moving from child to adult services. My examples will illustrate that very clearly.