Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and John Howell

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to help prevent mental health illness among young people.

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

We are committed to improving early intervention and prevention to ensure that young people with mental health problems do get the best start and the earliest possible treatment. To that end, we are introducing new school-based mental health support teams. The first 59 of these will start being operational by the end of December this year. The next wave of 124 more teams was announced on 12 July.

[John Howell]

With half of all lifetime cases of mental ill health beginning at the age of 14, will the Minister say how well the training promised to constituencies such as mine will help to stop these problems worsening as people get older?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend is right: people with mental health conditions do tend to develop them as children. Clearly, the earlier we can give them support to help them manage those conditions, the better for their long-term wellbeing. Equally, however, we need to make sure we have sufficient community services when they leave school and get older, so that having invested in their wellbeing, it can be continued through later life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and John Howell

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I have to advise the hon. Lady that we are on course to meet the targets in the five year forward view, but she is right to raise concerns about the workforce. Frankly, that keeps me awake at night. We are investing in a significant expansion of mental health services and that requires appropriate staff to deliver them. I can assure her, however, that we are in productive discussions with clinical leads in NHS England. We need to be much more imaginative about how we deliver services, and we are seeing substantial gains and improvements in performance through the increased use of peer support workers, who provide the therapeutic care from which many can benefit. However, the hon. Lady is right to hold me to account.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to improve the diagnosis and treatment for patients with rare diseases and cancer.