Severe Eating Disorders (North-East England)

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Again, the testimony of those most intimately involved speaks to the excellence of the unit and the concern of people in Tyneside.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Like her, I have had many letters of support from constituents who have been helped by the Richardson eating disorder service, and also from individual nurses and doctors, such as Dr Caroline Reynolds, the consultant psychiatrist at REDS, who have provided assistance to people with this terrible disease. Does the hon. Lady think it would be right for the mental health trust and NHS England, together and collectively, to review their decision and, going forward, address how they will recommission the service when the present contract ends?

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and I certainly believe that the decision should and must be reviewed. It is clear that a number of hon. Members have been contacted by concerned constituents. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who cannot attend this debate, asked me to say that he also had constituents who are affected.

Given that admissions in the north-east are 30% above the national average, and that the Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends that six beds per million of the population are needed for average admission rates, the north-east’s 2.8 million people need 23 beds. I will return to that figure, but first a word about the threatened unit that hon. Members have already referred to.

The Richardson eating disorder service is operated by Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust. It is in the centre of Newcastle, with excellent transport links. It is acknowledged to be an outstanding unit, rated excellent by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Care Quality Commission. It has just won Beat’s clinical team of the year award. A stable, vastly experienced staff has been treating adult in and out-patients since 1997, and it has saved many lives. One sufferer said:

“I have suffered from anorexia nervosa for over 12 years and unfortunately during that time I have required many admissions to medical and eating disorder units”.

She names a number of them before going on to say:

“The admission to the Richardson was by far the most successful. I made such huge strides towards recovery and was the healthiest I have been since this all began.”

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Indeed, if the criteria on which this decision was made were publicly available, we could perhaps tell which models NHS England considered and what it hoped to achieve. Unfortunately, there is no transparency, which is one of the key issues.

Problems started in 2010, when commissioned adult eating disorder in-patient beds were tendered and the contract was awarded to Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, although it did not then operate an in-patient unit. It quickly established a 10-bed unit in Darlington, but on a site with poor transport links to the north. For clarity for those Members who may not be familiar with the north, Newcastle is to the north of Darlington.

The award was a shock to many people, not simply because of the result, but because of the lack of consultation. I should like to ask the Minister a specific question: against what criteria were proposed services considered to be better than award-winning ones already on offer in the Richardson? If he does not know, I hope that he will promise to find out. Was cost the driving factor? What was the evidence basis for the centralising of these critical mental health services?

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines specifically state that for severe eating disorders patients should be treated near their homes, with the support of family and friends. These are often young, vulnerable people, who are not yet independent of their family, either financially or emotionally. As one told me,

“Seriously ill anorexics are often cognitively impaired as a result of severe starvation and separation from loving support, together with that the challenge to dangerous and entrenched behavioural traits is often too much to bear.”

Given the lack of consultation, the north-east specialised commissioning group was instructed to strengthen its relationships with stakeholders and report any other substantial changes or developments to the NHS scrutiny committee.

NEEDAG, formed by carers and patients concerned about the threat to the Richardson, hoped that at least five of the beds in the Richardson would continue to be used by those in the north of the region, given overall regional demand. However, in April 2012, the commissioner increased the number of beds at Darlington to 15—again, without any consultation, scrutiny or performance data by which to make judgments. When challenged, I am told that the commissioner said they were not obligated to consult anyone. I hope that the Minister will correct them on this point. It is possible that the top-down reorganisation of the NHS instituted by this Government may have led to them forgetting their obligations under the NHS constitution.

When Darlington was full, commissioners started sending very ill patients out of the area, instead of to the Richardson, saying that every commissioned bed in England, no matter where it was, had to be filled before a patient from Tyneside could be sent to Newcastle. That is how we have arrived at the ridiculous and tragic situation of our national health service sending vulnerable Tyneside patients to Glasgow, Norwich and London when there are empty beds in the Richardson unit in the centre of Newcastle.

The impact on vulnerable young people of being separated from their families undoubtedly makes it more difficult to recover—hence the NICE guidelines. The cost of visiting for families is enormous, both financially and emotionally. One parent wrote:

“This will then have an effect on our family’s mental health as we are all struggling to come to terms with the condition and to help M recover. I would refuse to let M be admitted so far away from home and would rather give up my full time job to look after her in the familiar and safe surroundings of home.”

Another parent who fought to win a place for their daughter at the Richardson said:

“We were very angry to have been put in the position of having to fight for a bed for our dangerously ill daughter at a time when all our energy was needed to comfort and support her through a very difficult time. The added pressure and anxiety it caused the whole family was dreadful.”

It has been announced that the unit will be closed down, because it was said—cynically and cruelly—that it was not being used locally. If it was not being used locally, it was because NHS England was sending local people hundreds of miles away. Freedom of information requests submitted by NEEDAG show that Darlington’s 15 beds are full; that there are eight in-patients from the north-east in London, Sheffield, Leeds, Glasgow and Norwich; and that five patients have managed to win beds in the Richardson.

[Guy Opperman]

We all understand the need for and importance of centralised specialist services, whether they be stroke services or those under discussion, but given the number of people per capita in the north-east who suffer from this terrible disease, is there not a genuine case to be made for the two services to co-exist?

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. That is indeed the case. The number of in-patient admissions in the north-east as a result of severe eating disorders is 30% above the average, which suggests that about 23 beds are required. It would be possible to meet the NICE guidelines and retain the services in Darlington and in Newcastle, yet not meet the increasing demand for in-patient beds. There are a total of 28 in-patients from the north-east, but NHS England says that only 15 beds are needed; that clearly goes against the 23 calculated in accordance with guidelines.

NHS England argues that it is investing in the north-east, and that it is opening an intensive day unit in Newcastle that will reduce demand for in-patient care, but it has provided absolutely no evidence to support its claim. One parent said:

“For my daughter the thought of going back to the local community mental health teams fills her with dread.”

A day centre does not address the issues of isolation and support when in-patient care is needed.

Patients are so worried that two of them have decided to take both the trust and the commissioners to judicial review, based on the lack of consultation transparency. They are applying for legal aid, so we will be in the ridiculous situation of spending public money to both defend and attack a decision taken without the most basic public consultation.

Having written to the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), on the subject in the past, I know that he is sympathetic to the plight of sufferers of severe eating disorders and their families and friends. Both he and the Secretary of State have criticised sending patients hundreds of miles for treatment. I want the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), to answer the questions I have already asked and the following two in particular.

First, does the Minister support the concentration of mental health services? In the case of heart surgery for children, we are told that concentration saves lives, because surgeons must be operating on many patients to retain their skills, but the mind does not physically work in the same way as the heart. Does he believe that there is something to be gained from making mental health into a production line? Why is it not possible to maintain beds in Darlington and Newcastle? Why is NHS England not following NICE advice? If the aim is to save money, is this truly a cost saving, or merely moving costs from the NHS to the sufferers of this terrible condition and their family and friends? Is it not outrageous that NHS England should be moving costs on to the most vulnerable and risking lives by doing so?

Secondly, on transparency, how can the Minister possibly support a process whereby there is no consultation on decisions that are so important to the lives of patients and their carers? Is that not in itself a reason to reverse the decision, given that the commissioners did not consult the people to whom they are accountable and in whose interests they are paid—and often paid very well—to commission services?

I will leave the last words to someone more intimately concerned with this than I am, who wrote to me:

“My friend’s beautiful and talented daughter has battled this terrible condition for many years with the help of the Richardson and the support of friends and family every single day that she has been in there. I truly believe that if the unit near to home closes and she feels far from this lifeline of support, she will give up her fight and that could be the end not only of her dream to take up her place at University but possibly, it’s not too dramatic to say, her life.”