Mental Health Treatment and Support

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

The Metropolitan police recently announced that it would stop attending mental health calls unless there was a risk to life. That has rightly generated much debate about the role of policing. However, it has not generated much debate so far on how, if we all believe in the right care, right person principles, we got into the position where the police are playing such a primary role, and where our mental health services are in that conversation. We know that the police are stretched. For all the Home Secretary’s talk of increased police numbers, the Government are only restoring the officers they have been cutting since 2010. Alongside those cuts, years of austerity have hammered other public services. West Yorkshire police tell me that mental health-related demand increased by 60% between 2012 and 2022. We have allowed policing to become the one-stop-shop that we ask to pick up the pieces when everything else falls apart. Mental health practitioners are also undeniably stretched, but mental health specialists are the right people to provide mental health support, especially when somebody is in crisis.

I am in no doubt that the police will have tried various other ways of encouraging their colleagues in mental health trusts to recognise the leadership role they are required to play in the response to a mental health issue. I know that because I also spend a great deal of time locally in Halifax trying to do the same, and secure specialist support for people who need serious and urgent help. When someone is in real distress with their mental health or approaching a crisis, too often West Yorkshire police, Calderdale Council, charities and other partners—even the hospital trust—work together with my team and I to do what we can. Yet I am afraid that too often it has proved incredibly difficult to bring qualified mental health specialists into the team to even be a part of the conversation. That results in the wrong care for people at their most vulnerable.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) said, that is a false economy, because it falls to all the other services and partners to try to provide a degree of care that they are not qualified to provide. We should not criminalise people who are unwell out of necessity. The police are right to take a step back. The question is what will it take for mental health trusts and professionals to be able to step forward?

As our motion sets out, patients suffering with mental health issues waited more than 5.4 million hours in accident and emergency last year and we have nearly 400,000 children currently waiting for treatment. If we are proactive about mental health, it will, as has been outlined, be cost-effective in the long term and we can prevent more people from being in a crisis situation. A Labour Government would recruit thousands of mental health staff to expand access to treatment, provide access to specialist mental health support in every school, establish open access mental health hubs for children and young people, and bring in the first ever long-term, whole-Government plan to improve outcomes for people with mental health needs.

I read the Government’s amendment to our motion. Does any MP who does their casework properly and is truly grounded in their constituency really recognise the picture it paints? The Government pat themselves on the back for hitting the target for interventions in psychosis. I checked what the target was. The standard is that 60% of people experiencing their first episode of psychosis will have access to a NICE-approved care package within two weeks of referral. We have all experienced supporting people in a psychotic episode. How long does it take to even get an assessment for that person to then hope that they are in the 60% of people who should get care within two weeks? It is not good enough. We need a Labour plan to deliver much more.