Mental Health Services (South-East Essex)

John Baron Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Norman Lamb]

I hope that my hon. Friend recognises that I have sought to address his concerns directly, rather than reading from a pre-prepared speech. I share his concern about levels of pay in the upper echelons of the NHS, and I believe that that must be addressed.

On a more positive note, in the short time that I have available let me mention some of the positive things that we are doing. In January, we launched a document called “Closing the gap”, which directly addresses the fact that mental health services always fall behind physical health services. We have stated publicly, and we have put into legislation, that there should be parity of esteem and equality between mental and physical health services. The document identifies 25 areas in mental health services in which essential change is needed. One example is the widespread use of face-down restraint. Such restraint is not acceptable or necessary in a modern mental health service, and many areas have demonstrated how to create positive regimes without the use of such a barbaric approach.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) on securing this important debate. There are various shades of mental health problems, and care in the community is an important aspect of looking after those who suffer from such problems. However, day centres up and down the country, including Mundy House in my constituency, are under threat. Will the Minister look at what more can be done to support day centres as a means of caring for not only mental health patients but other patients and community members generally?

[Norman Lamb]

I am conscious that I am close to running out of time, but community services often do enormously good work in their local areas. The focus on mental health must shift towards a prevention approach. We must intervene early rather than allowing a problem to deteriorate and acting only after something has happened. We must also focus much more on recovery. So often, we seek to contain people’s ill health rather than helping them to recover in a meaningful sense.

Finally, I would like to mention our crisis care concordat, which will set high standards of crisis care in mental health that have never existed before. We expect every area to implement that concordat to ensure that people, wherever they are in the country, get access to the right standards of care.