People with Learning Disabilities (Abuse)

Debate between Julian Lewis and Paul Burstow

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

I am sure that Lord Morris would have been following these matters very closely and with great interest, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising them.

The events at Winterbourne View that the right hon. Gentleman so clearly described were horrifying and depressing. They were horrifying because they so sharply defined everything that is rotten and can go wrong in closed institutions where people are out of sight. What took place at Winterbourne View was criminal. A culture of abuse was allowed to fester and grow undetected and unchecked. The serious case review by Margaret Flynn sets out in great detail the failings of Castlebeck Care Ltd, and it makes grim reading. The right hon. Gentleman reported many of its findings to the House. The events at Winterbourne View were depressing because, as the report by Mencap and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, “Out of Sight”, reminds us, it is not the first time that closed institutions have let down people with learning disabilities. The right hon. Gentleman highlighted the personal stories that are contained in that important report, and those stories are very telling, with families feeling let down by the system and the sense that the best interests of the individual are not being served and that their views, wishes and feelings were not sought, and if they were sought were not understood.

In October this year, the court will hand down sentences to the 11 members of staff who have pleaded guilty to maltreatment of patients at Winterbourne View hospital. There are no excuses and no mitigating circumstances. What happened was degrading, dehumanising and despicable. I understand that the Crown Prosecution Service will ask the judge to take into account the fact that these are disability hate crimes when determining the sentence of the defendants.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Can the Minister inform the House whether the people who behaved in such a sadistic way had, prior to recruitment, shown any evidence of tendencies of this sort? We would usually expect people who go into the caring professions to be empathetic, sympathetic and caring. How come people who gloried in sadism found themselves in such positions?

[Paul Burstow]

That goes to the heart of a number of the points made in the serious case review about the nature of the recruitment processes that were used by Castlebeck and the way in which it then carried on inadequately to train, supervise and monitor the conduct of those staff. I will come back to some of the actions that the Government are taking in that regard to make it much more difficult for that to occur again in future.

Of course, what happened at Winterbourne View came to light only as the result of the actions of the whistleblower, Terry Bryan, and the Panorama programme broadcast by the BBC. I personally thanked Terry for his actions when I spoke to him some months ago about the interim report that we published in June, and I do so again tonight. Thanks to Terry, the Care Quality Commission has changed its systems and set up a dedicated whistleblowing team. An even greater emphasis is being placed on the importance attached to the role of whistleblowers. That is why the Government have introduced a free whistleblowing helpline, not only for NHS staff but, for the first time, for social care staff, so that they can get advice on how to report concerns that they have. There has also been a strengthening of the NHS constitution to make these matters clear to their employers as well.

Terry Bryan blew the whistle on the worst excesses of a wider systemic failure. As I acknowledged in the Department of Health’s interim report in June, the problems revealed at Winterbourne View are more systemic. There has been a tendency when reporting on Winterbourne View to heap much, if not all, of the blame on the CQC. Indeed, the CQC seems to stand as the barrier to everyone else who should be in the dock being criticised, scrutinised and challenged for what went wrong. Although the CQC, rightly and properly, acknowledged its failings and apologised at the time, the issue of staffing and the freeze that this Government introduced on coming into office in May 2010 was specifically lifted for the CQC in October 2010, and there were no restrictions on staff recruitment. If there were failings of recruitment, the CQC would need to answer for them—indeed, it has—before the Health Committee.

Every part of the system—NHS and social care commissioners, providers, regulators and health and care professionals—has a part to play and, indeed, has questions to ask itself about what has passed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Paul Burstow

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

Yes, we are liaising with the devolved Administrations. Yes, we had a productive meeting with the trust and the council, which confirmed that they will shortly submit to us the second-year evaluation of the pilot programme. I undertook to look at that carefully and enter into further discussions with a view to reaching a conclusion and making further announcements this autumn.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Ministers may recall the concern of patients and carers in the New Forest area about the decision to close a third of acute adult mental health beds in Hampshire. Are Ministers aware of a similar trend in other parts of the country, and if they are, as they should be, what do they think about it?

Mental Health

Debate between Julian Lewis and Paul Burstow

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

That is an important and challenging point, and I will want to go away and think about what we do. For patient safety, we still need to learn lessons when things go wrong in our system, acknowledge when things have not been done properly and put them right. In that sense, confidential inquiries are an important part of the learning mechanism. One point of frustration that I hear in debates in the House and see in correspondence from hon. Members is the sense that lessons are not learned. As part of our reforms, with the NHS Commissioning Board taking on responsibility for patient safety, we need to ensure that that is not the case in future.

We are investing £16 million in “Time to Change”, and we were delighted when Comic Relief decided to put in an additional £4 million, one of the biggest grants that it has ever made.

I wish to make another point that touches on the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne and the hon. Member for North Durham. One in five people still think that anyone who has a history of mental health problems should not be allowed to hold public office. How many former Presidents, Prime Ministers or Ministers would have been excluded if that view had been applied? [Hon. Members: “Churchill.”] Precisely. Such a law is as outdated as asylums and as outdated as many of the attitudes that sit behind it. It has to be consigned to the history books just like asylums have been, and under the coalition Government’s watch, it will be. I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) on securing a slot for a private Member’s Bill on the subject.

Looking ahead, although we have made progress there are still big challenges to tackle. Reference has been made to the implementation framework that will be published to support the roll-out of the “No health without mental health” strategy. That framework has been produced in conjunction with five national mental health organisations—Rethink Mental Illness, the NHS Confederation, the Centre for Mental Health, Turning Point and Mind—and many others have been involved.

We have previously had a very good debate about “Listening to Experience”, Mind’s excellent report on acute and crisis care, and Mind’s policy team have been directly involved in ensuring that the framework delivers on those issues. It will provide a route map for every organisation with contributions to make to improve the nation’s mental health. It will spell out how progress will be made, measured and reported.

What does success look like? To me, it means more people having access to evidence-based psychological therapists; services intervening earlier, particularly for children and young people; services focusing on recovery and people’s needs and aspirations above all; and service users and carers being at the heart of all aspects of planning and service delivery.

Today, economists tell us that mental ill health in this country costs £105 billion a year, and that is just in England. If we succeed and put in place the right combination of public health, anti-stigma policies, accessible psychological therapies and excellent community and acute services, we can dramatically reduce that figure. Put another way, if we can deliver the right evidence-based treatment to children and young people so that their conditions do not persist into adulthood, we can prevent as many as two in five of all adult mental health disorders. As a society, we have made huge progress in how we recognise people’s mental illness, but despite that we have not fully accepted that mental health is equal to physical health and that parity of esteem is needed between the problems of the body and the problems of the mind. That is the challenge—

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Paul Burstow]

I will.

[Dr Lewis]

I have waited many years to intervene on a Minister in his final sentence, and I have achieved that today.

Does the Minister accept, having made a convincing case for people being able to live with their illnesses by being at home, that part of the reassurance that they need to do that is to know that in periods of acute crisis, there will be a bed available for them should it be needed? That should be not only for detained patients but for voluntary patients.

[Paul Burstow]

One thing I did not say—I was trying to cut down my remarks—was that there is an essential need to give more people the ability to control their health care through crisis plans. Crisis plans are an opportunity for people to make a statement in advance on how they wish to be treated in the event of a mental health episode that requires an intervention from mental health services. We know that when the plans are in place, they make a huge difference to the need for admission, and that they can reduce the length of stay. We need to ensure that there is a sufficiency of beds so that people can get appropriate treatment, but we also need to ensure that there is much more focus on good, community-based intervention at an early stage. Getting that balance right is always difficult for health commissioners to achieve—I know my hon. Friend is struggling with that in his patch at the moment.

Those are the challenges the NHS faces. They are challenges not just for our health commissioners and providers but, as this debate has clearly demonstrated, for our whole society. We can transform mental health in this country only if we transform our attitudes. This debate plays an important part in that.

Mental Health Unit (Burton)

Debate between Julian Lewis and Paul Burstow

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) on securing the debate and on making his points so clearly on behalf of his constituents. I also congratulate him on demonstrating why Adjournment debates are so important: they give Members in all parts of the House an opportunity to bring issues to the attention of the public, and also to serve their constituents by bringing issues to the House in a way that requires Ministers to be accountable.

I am aware, from what my hon. Friend has said this evening also from my preparation for the debate, of the strength of feeling in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I noted his description of the contribution made by his local newspaper, the Burton Mail, in leading the campaign at local level. The 7,500 signatures to the petition that have been collected so far are an impressive indication of the extent of public support and concern.

Let me say a little about the national policy context, some of which I have said on other occasions. In February this year we published our mental health strategy, “No health without mental health”, which I commend to Members in all parts of the House and, indeed, to my hon. Friend’s constituents. Let me now make two specific points. First, we expect the treatment and care of patients to be provided in the environment that is most appropriate and therapeutic for the patient. Acute beds should of course be available for those who need them, and those in charge of services should always consult on the needs and wishes of patients when making decisions about community or hospital-based treatment. Indeed, 10,300 new patients with an early diagnosis of psychosis were engaged with early intervention in psychosis services this year, the largest number ever recorded.

A number of Adjournment debates in recent weeks have raised the issue of data on bed occupancy and the definitions on which they are based. I will not undertake to arrange a meeting, but I will undertake to ensure that work is done in the Department, which I will examine, to establish how well the data are collected and how clear they are.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am very satisfied with the Minister’s offer, but may I suggest that the Audit Commission—the only organisation that seems to produce reliable figures—has a chance to look at what we have discovered in our trusts? As I have said, the figures that are given to us are not reliable where I am, and, as I have heard tonight, they are not reliable where my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) is either.

[Paul Burstow]

I will certainly try to ensure that the data sets that we have are robust, although the future of the Audit Commission is perhaps a moot point in tonight’s debate.

Let me now deal with the local situation outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and, in particular, the proposals relating to the Margaret Stanhope centre. It is important to stress that the proposals are currently the subject of public consultation, notwithstanding some of the concerns about the process that have been outlined.

Mental Health Care

Debate between Julian Lewis and Paul Burstow

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) on securing the debate and on pursuing this issue through the all-party group on mental health and other channels for a considerable time. His good fortune in securing the debate tonight is particularly timely given the publication of Mind’s report this morning. I congratulate him doubly on that successful coalition of events that have led to the debate.

I, too, have had the opportunity to study the report, “Listening to Experience”, published by Mind, and I certainly share many of the sentiments that have been expressed in this brief debate. The report undoubtedly shines a spotlight on what is good about our acute and crisis mental health services, what is unacceptable, what is bad and what we can do to make them much better. It brings together the results of an independent inquiry, as we have heard, and it is fundamentally about ensuring that we listen to voices that are all too often overlooked and ignored.

I welcome the report. It is challenging, and some of the unacceptable practice that it describes is frankly harrowing. Many of its important conclusions reflect the aims and ambitions of our cross-Government mental health strategy, “No health without mental health”. More than that, it reinforces why it is right that our broader health and social care reform agenda focuses on patients being treated in a way that respects their dignity, protects their human rights and promotes flexible and creative commissioning solutions that are tailored to meet individual and local needs. The key is ensuring that services are genuinely personalised.

The provision of safe, modern, effective mental health services that offer patients real choice is, and remains, a Government priority. We expect the treatment and care of patients to be provided in the most appropriate therapeutic environment for them. My hon. Friend rightly referred to the concern expressed in the report that acute beds are not always available when needed. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) spoke about her own experience and her concerns about the journeys that some people have to make to find facilities, which is clearly unacceptable.

I want to make it absolutely clear that commissioners and providers have a responsibility to ensure that acute beds are available for those who need them. They should also ensure that the needs and wishes of patients, families and carers are not only sought but taken into account when decisions are made about community or hospital-based treatment. Distance and journey times are very serious issues that need to be properly taken into account in those commissioning decisions.

The quality, innovation, productivity and prevention programme, which is sometimes known as the Nicholson challenge, has targeted both reductions in bed days and—I stress—out-of-area admissions. Through a more effective acute care pathway, we can expect to achieve better patient experience of care, which means care that better reflects patient preferences, including being cared for at home if possible. That contributes to a more productive use of NHS resources to ensure that we drive up quality.

Specialised mental health community teams—crisis resolution home treatment, assertive outreach and early intervention in psychosis—provide care to service users and families in community settings. The crisis resolution home team performs a key role in supporting people at home, which often averts the need for an in-patient stay, acts as a gatekeeper for all those requiring access to in-patient services or other emergency care and supports early discharge, when appropriate.

The team is part of an integrated acute care system. It is affected by, and has an effect on, that system and beyond, especially the in-patient service and day hospital and community mental health teams. For example, patients with early onset psychosis benefit from early intervention services, and assertive outreach engages with severe and persistent mental disorder such as schizophrenia. That shared approach in system delivery is already beginning to show results, because 10,300 new patients with early diagnosis of psychosis were engaged with early intervention in psychosis services this year, which is the highest ever recorded figure. Overall investment in key mental health teams has also increased. In the last year, crisis resolution home treatment teams carried out 131,450 home treatment episodes for 106,790 patients who would otherwise have been admitted to hospital, an increase of 3.2% over the previous year.

I do not want my remarks in response to the important debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne has secured to suggest that the Government are complacent. Mental health is a priority for us. The strategy that I mentioned earlier, and not least the spending review decisions that we made last year, make clear our commitment, especially as regards improving access to talking therapists for people with severe mental illness. However, there is always room to improve, and there is a need to listen to, understand and act on the experience of patients.

Mind’s report helpfully highlights four key areas: humanity, commissioning for people’s needs, choice and control, and reducing the medical emphasis in acute care, which is very much like the well-being concept that my hon. Friend has discussed. In mental health services, it is vital to balance patient autonomy with patient safety, which is often a source of debate in the Chamber. We need to ensure that that is done in an appropriate way, but it can be a challenging balance to strike. However, the solution to the problem does not lie with heavy-handed or coercive approaches. A wealth of research, guidance and good practice, much of which is cited in Mind’s report, offers practical strategies that can contribute much to ensuring that patient care is conducted in the humane, caring and respectful fashion described by my hon. Friend, envisaged in Mind’s report and espoused in the Government’s vision for mental health services.

The Mental Health Act 2007 code of practice is clear on the need to seek all alternative measures before adopting control and restraint or seclusion procedures. Restraint should be the last resort, never the practice of first choice. The code also emphasises the importance of providing support to patients after using control and restraint, seclusion or long-term segregation, and of reviewing such incidents to enable staff to learn from them.

The Mind report rightly draws attention to the importance of ensuring services meet the needs of black and minority ethnic communities. The Government’s mental health strategy acknowledges the lower well-being and higher rates of mental health problems that some BME groups suffer. The strategy is explicit on ensuring that health promotion and ill-health prevention approaches are targeted at high-risk groups, which means that programmes must be delivered in such a way that they are accessible to families from BME groups. Such approaches will lead to a narrowing of the health inequality gap.

There is no doubt that good data play a critical part in driving improvement—the report highlights that—which is why the mental health minimum dataset already has a good level of information on the ethnicity of patients, and why the annual mental health bulletin includes rates of access to services by ethnic groups and describes the ethnic profile of people spending time in hospital and being detained.

We will build on those measures. The mental health minimum dataset will go further, because for the first time it will be possible to analyse the full patient pathway, showing what happens to different groups of people before and after hospitalisation. This dataset has been identified as the single source for national statistics about the use of the Mental Health Act in the future, and the NHS information centre will launch a consultation next spring to determine exactly what information will be useful—I hope that hon. Members and others following the debate will take the opportunity to feed into that. The ability to compare and demonstrate differences between localities is an important way of driving improvement in services.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Paul Burstow]

I can see my hon. Friend waving at me. I give way to him.

[Dr Lewis]

I am most grateful to the Minister. I want to put it on the record that since our last exchange on this subject on 10 November more data have come from the Hampshire trust, which intends to close more than one third of its acute in-patient beds, confirming that although only a minority of patients admitted to acute beds were detained patients, they stayed for longer, and that at any one time about half the beds, if not more, were occupied by detained patients. Does the Minister agree that if excessive numbers of beds are closed, the opportunity for a non-detained patient to find a bed will be disproportionately reduced?

[Paul Burstow]

I certainly agree that we need to look carefully at the data. My hon. Friend was right in his Adjournment debate on 10 November to highlight these issues and potential discrepancies, and I shall certainly take a close look at the data to which he has referred.

I am anxious to ensure that Mind and other key stakeholders play a part in identifying how the information that I have referred to can best be analysed and presented. As I have said, those data will be particularly useful in supporting commissioners in developing the kind of flexible and creative commissioning solutions that Mind and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne have described so well.

The drive to improve the quality of services and reduce inequalities lies at the heart of our commissioning reforms. For the first time, the Secretary of State for Health, the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups will be under a legal duty to have regard to health inequalities in both access to and outcomes from health care. This legal duty will hardwire reducing health inequalities into the system. It not only obliges the Secretary of State to act, but obliges them to demonstrate that they did so and with what result. That is a powerful incentive for change.

Mind rightly emphasised the importance of choice, which I strongly endorse. That is already being demonstrated through several initiatives, including the improving access to psychological therapies programme for children and adolescents and for adults, the extension of the personal health budgets programme for people with mental health problems to increase choice and control and the development of adult and children mental health tariffs. We believe that choice of consultant or other professional-led teams should extend to mental health to achieve the parity of esteem expected by the mental health strategy, and we will work with key stakeholders to develop the proposals and look at ways of implementing our plans.

We recognise the benefits that mental health patients can receive from support and mentoring from peers, which was touched on in this debate, as well as the contribution from things such as crisis housing. To that end, I am working with colleagues on the ministerial working group on mental health to make these more widespread.

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend and others who have intervened and spoken briefly in this debate. I shall write to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) to pick up on his particular point. I very much welcome Mind’s report for its clarity and for the useful contribution that it makes to our shared aim of improving acute and crisis services, and I shall meet it to discuss its report and how we can take its recommendations forward in delivering the Government’s mental health strategy. The Government remain committed to achieving their overarching goal of better mental health outcomes for everyone. Our strategy sets out what everyone needs to do to realise that goal, and by working together we can make a long-lasting difference to the quality of life of people with mental health needs.

Question put and agreed to.

Woodhaven Hospital

Debate between Julian Lewis and Paul Burstow

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) on securing the debate and on being, as ever, so thorough and detailed in his exposition of the case that he puts before the House. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hard work of the staff who work within the NHS in his constituency.

I want to set out the current position, as I understand it from the briefings that I have had over the past few days, and to respond to several of my hon. Friend’s specific points. I assure him that under the proposals for adult mental health redesign set out by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, Woodhaven hospital will not close but will change the nature of what is provided. I want to make it clear that there is a continuing NHS future for the facility, albeit not the one that he believes to be appropriate.

While the trust recommends that the acute adult mental health ward is withdrawn from Woodhaven, the excellent hospital which my hon. Friend opened eight years ago and which the community should rightly be proud of will continue to offer specialist adult mental health services. The aim of these changes is to provide the right mix of community and bed-based care—this debate centres on what that balance is—and ultimately the best possible support for people in his constituency who use these services.

My hon. Friend will be aware that during the 18-month engagement with the public that took place prior to the statutory consultation, the majority of patients consulted said—this is one of the areas that he challenges—that they wanted to be treated in the community. As a general principle in any field of health care, the more we can focus on prevention and on supporting people in their homes so that they retain their independence and stay connected with their communities, the better the outcomes we can achieve. The principles behind the trust’s proposed redesign can therefore be pinned squarely to the views of local people, and this is where I want to reassure my hon. Friend a little further. I understand that, through the consultation, the trust has been told this on repeated occasions. I have a quote from one service user:

“I was unfortunate enough to need the services of the home treatment team over Christmas 2008 and New Year 2009, but due to the care I received from the team I didn’t need to be admitted to hospital and I was able to stay at home with my husband and son.”

Clearly, my hon. Friend disputes the evidence that the trust is putting forward about whether patients want to be treated at home, but it is for this reason that it is recommending the integrated model for mental health services in Hampshire and the reinvestment of savings from acute services into community services. However, I will ensure that he is supplied with further evidence on these points so that he can satisfy himself and his constituents that the trust is basing its decisions on reasonable evidence.

Additional community services will ensure that patients receive flexible and bespoke care packages in their home wherever possible, even when acutely unwell. The intention of the proposals will mean that people are admitted to hospital only if it is clear that hospital is the best place for them to receive their treatment. The trust tells me that treatment and care for patients will be provided in the most appropriate and therapeutic environment for the patient and that acute beds should be available for those who need them. However, when local trusts propose changes to existing services, the public should be closely consulted. Again, my hon. Friend obviously feels that that is not what has happened. In the case of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, service user involvement projects and carers’ groups from across the county have worked closely with the trust to develop the proposals for the redesign.

I want to deal with a couple of the specific statistical points that my hon. Friend set out so clearly. He has demonstrated something that does not always happen in these debates, in that someone has done a lot of detailed research to try to nail the issue that he is most concerned about. First, I want to deal with the proportion of people detained versus those in voluntary admission. He referred to two days’ worth of data that he had collected and his conclusion that 53% of people were detained in those circumstances. However, I understand that over the past six months, on average, 22% of people admitted to the trust’s adult acute beds have been detained under the Mental Health Act. I have asked the trust to write to my hon. Friend with those figures so that he can see more data.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The trust did fax me some figures of that sort. However, they did not make sense because when they were added up, the total was way below the number of beds that had been occupied. I honestly think that the trust is wrong on these proportions.

[Paul Burstow]

That is why I think it is right for the trust, having read this debate, to follow it up by writing to my hon. Friend. I know that he has been engaging with it face-to-face as well, and I am sure that he will continue to do so.

My hon. Friend made a point about the trust anticipating the effectiveness of the whole clinical pathway and about the focus on the most unwell reducing the number of people admitted under the Mental Health Act, in addition to reducing voluntary admissions.

My hon. Friend mentioned the issue of whether one counts leave beds. It is common for people who have been detained in hospital to have a period of leave from the ward before they are discharged. That can vary from a few days to several months. The beds for leave patients are not kept empty, but are made available for other acute admissions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said. It is therefore important to count leave beds when considering capacity. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East set out clearly his concern about bed occupancy and the impact of leave beds. I will make sure that the trust considers this issue carefully as it draws together the feedback from the consultation before its forthcoming discussion with the Hampshire overview and scrutiny committee. I will ensure that his concerns about length of stay, which he set out so clearly, are put to it.

My hon. Friend made a request for a pilot. Although I will not go quite as far as he would like tonight, it might help if I provide him with some information about the process that the trust has put in place to evaluate and assess the proposed changes. I understand that it has invited the Centre for Mental Health to do an independent review of the proposals, which is expected to be complete within a month. The trust’s research and development department is also completing a thorough evaluation of proposals, comparing a range of quality measures at baseline and after implementation.

On the next steps, the trust has been in discussions with the Hampshire health overview and scrutiny committee, and it has been agreed that the trust will hold a number of stakeholder meetings. It is expected that the trust will return to the health overview and scrutiny committee at the end of this month and present a written report that describes the themes from the consultation feedback and the progress that has been made in those meetings. The trust will then make suggestions on the next steps, which it will agree with the health overview and scrutiny committee, with a view to reaching final decisions in early 2012. As I understand it, any changes will be implemented by the trust in a phased, transitional approach over a period of time, not as a big bang.

The trust will, of course, keep my hon. Friend fully informed. I know that he has been diligent in pursuing the trust with his concerns. I encourage him to carry on that dialogue. I again congratulate him on securing this debate and for clearly articulating his concerns on behalf of his constituents. I hope that I have been able to articulate some of the points that the trust has put to me and I look forward to a conclusion of this matter in the new year.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Paul Burstow

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The news that the Woodhaven hospital in my constituency is threatened with closure only eight years after it was opened as a state-of-the-art mental health facility is causing great concern. Will my right hon. Friend endeavour to look into what is proposed for the closure of acute in-patient beds because the “hospital at home” alternative is simply not good enough?

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question and I would certainly be happy to look further into the matter and write to him accordingly.