Bereavement Counselling

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

Thank you for allowing this debate, Mr Speaker. I am really glad to have this opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), who has spoken incredibly movingly about his personal experience. In this place, it is difficult to speak rawly from the heart, but he has done well today. He has done extremely well. His speech sets in stark relief the fact that we are all human beings in this place, although people might be forgiven for thinking otherwise in recent days. We all bring our own experiences here, and it takes a lot of courage to share some of them. I am not always as confident and brave as he is when it comes to sharing my own stories. It is a pleasure to reply to him tonight.

The effects of bereavement and loss are different for us all, as my hon. Friend said. They can differ depending on age, on family circumstances and on whom we can reach out to for help, but one thing that I would really like to land is the fact that grief is lifelong. Grief never leaves us. When we lose a loved one, it stays with us for the rest of our life. My hon. Friend mentioned triggers, and they can happen at any point. It is important that I, as a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care, ensure that we have sufficient support for people who are grieving, because it can come from nowhere. He used the word “normalise”, and that is so important when we talk about any aspect of mental ill health and mental stress, because it is not uncommon for us all to go through periods when we feel like that.

It is difficult, particularly for men, to reach out and ask for help. That is because it is seen as a sign of weakness, but it really should not be. “No man is an island” is the trite phrase that we often use, but it is also true. Sometimes, people feel that they cannot show weakness because they are the linchpin of their family and cannot grieve because they need to be strong for everyone else. It will be the mark of a compassionate society that we ensure that we have services for all those people. From a health perspective, it is also really important that we do that, because people who are suffering in this way are more likely to suffer from physical ill health and from weight loss, depression and anxiety. I have witnessed this within my own family following a bereavement. We must encourage people to access support from bereavement counsellors.

My hon. Friend spoke movingly about the fact that Mother’s Day was a particular trigger for him. He lost his mother and father at a young age, and the sense of grief when life ends prematurely is perhaps even more acute at that time. I was reminded of people I have met who were victims of terror, for example, or of Grenfell Tower. There, too, life ended very prematurely for those people. Sometimes we do not even think about the effects of seeing pictures of that fire flashed up every time Grenfell Tower comes up on the news. We risk re-traumatising people in that way, and as a society we really need to start looking at some of those behaviours. These things are often done with the best of intentions. I remember when we started the independent inquiry into Grenfell, there was obviously great interest in it on the news, but those pictures being flashed out on every news programme cannot have been pleasant for those left behind. There is a role for us to think carefully about news reporting, broadcasting and what is available on the internet. There is also a challenge for editorial teams about how to report such things after the event, because we really should not expect people just to tolerate living with ongoing trauma.

Bereavement counselling is available to people at any time, and it is important to realise that the grieving process does last a lifetime and that feelings could be suppressed for decades before being triggered again. The first step for someone wanting to access a counsellor should be to go to their local GP or to self-refer to Cruse, as my hon. Friend mentioned. I am pleased that we will be making more services available through the 111 facility, because people being able to access care, advice and support when they need it will mitigate any harm that they are experiencing.

Cruse Bereavement Care is funded by clinical commissioning groups and local authorities and has branches all over the country that offer free, confidential advice to anyone who needs it. Cruse’s aim is that everyone who loses somebody should have someone to talk to when they need it, and I am pleased with the service it offers. The quality of service could be improved, however, so we are working with NHS England to develop better provision so that everyone can access it.

I also cannot commend the voluntary and charity sector’s input enough. I keep saying to CCGs that we should not look at mental ill health just as something to be medicalised, because support from voluntary providers and people with other skills can be just as important in helping people to get better and get used to their condition as any appointment with a clinician. The 111 service will provide 24/7 mental health crisis support, enabling access to a trained mental health professional who can signpost to treatment and other support, but the system should be holistic, so we need voluntary services, bereavement counselling and mental health professionals where they are needed.

My hon. Friend told us this evening that Mother’s Day is a particularly difficult time for him, and any kind of anniversary can reignite grief. I was interested to hear about Bloom & Wild’s policy, which is a good reminder of how a bit of sensitive thinking can make life so much easier. I would encourage all companies that are involved in activity around such times—any business that builds relationships with its customers—to be more sensitive in how it contacts people. That is just good corporate social responsibility, as he said. Advertising in the United Kingdom is regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority, but it could do more to spread good practice and encourage companies to think more carefully, because everyone can support people who have been bereaved.

I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) here, and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) was here earlier. The Baby Loss Awareness Week debate is now an annual fixture, and there is never a dry eye in the House when hon. Friends share their direct experiences. I find it amazing that it was so taboo to talk about such things until recently, but in this sphere we have led the way in acknowledging our grief and talking about it, and in so doing we are setting a good example for the rest of society. I know that it is difficult for colleagues, as I said, to talk so rawly about the emotions that they have experienced, but when pictures go out from this House showing not a point-scoring bearpit but real naked human emotion, that is what the public want to see. They are the things that remind them that, in this place, we are all citizens of the United Kingdom with all the problems and challenges that everyone else has. We are not some class apart living a completely different life—not living in the real world, as some would say.

Those pictures from the annual baby loss debate open people’s eyes and tackle the taboo. I very much hope that people watching those debates will think, “Do you know what? It’s okay to feel bad. It’s okay to have a good cry about something that happened to me many years ago.” Grief is something you have to manage. You will never stop missing that loved one, and you will never stop regretting the fact you have lost them. Much of the time memories are happy and, in your own mind, you can celebrate their life and their contribution to your life, but the regret that they cannot see what you are doing now is something that never leaves you, and that is just a sign of being a good human being.

I sincerely thank my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness for securing this debate. He raised the issue of suicide, and particularly male suicide, which underlines the need to encourage men to acknowledge that it is okay to have a good cry and to ask for help. They do not have to be superhuman and it is not a sign of weakness. We need to do much more to encourage men to open up, and I have seen that directly in my role as Minister for suicide prevention. I have met families who have lost young men to suicide, and it might sound weird, but it is a privilege to have heard their stories and for them to be able to share their pain. I find it so inspiring that people who have gone through the most tragic things want to use that experience to make life better for everyone else.

Perhaps that is a good note on which to finish. We are all very proud of my hon. Friend, because he has done exactly that. He has shared his pain so we can all learn from it. That is the best of Britishness.

Question put and agreed to.