Children’s Mental Health Week 2024
Debate between Kim Johnson and Rosena Allin-Khan(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this very important issue to Westminster Hall. She just spoke about black children. Does she think that this crisis is impacting disproportionately on black children and young people? Does the profession need to look at racism as a trauma, and does more work need to be done to consider those issues and deal with this crisis?
Dr Allin-Khan
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Absolutely yes, black people are significantly more adversely affected. The work has been done. We sat together and saw the evidence, and the Government have chosen to ignore the recommendations. Experts have been working for years on understanding the drivers and coming up with solutions. Young black men are four times more likely than white men to be diagnosed with mental ill health when they have entered the judicial system, when their life is over and they have already had their cards marked, as it were. What beggars belief is the fact that we had consensus. We had the experts who did the research. They came and presented, yet we have got nowhere. I am fed up, as are many people here, with the same old soundbites and no meaningful action.
Tonight, many children will be going to bed cold and hungry. More than 120,000 children will be without a home. Let us think about that for a moment: 120,000 children without a home. Millions more are living in poverty in damp and mouldy houses. Parents simply wanting the best for their families are suffering under the sharp pinch of the cost of living crisis. That is the damning reality of 14 long years of Tory rule.
Draft Mental Health Bill
Debate between Kim Johnson and Rosena Allin-Khan(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of the statement, and for sharing his family’s experiences over the weekend. I am so sorry to hear about the circumstances surrounding his brother’s tragic death.
This overhaul of the Mental Health Act 1983 is long awaited. We welcome the draft Bill, and the fact that the Government have accepted the majority of the recommendations from Sir Simon Wessely’s independent review of the Act. It was interesting to hear, in the statement, of the Government’s focus on keeping people in crisis out of A&E, and of their plans to reduce the use of general ambulance call-outs for those experiencing a mental health crisis. In 2020, there were over 470,000 calls to 999 because someone was in a mental health crisis, which took up an estimated 66,000 hours of call time. In my email inbox, I have numerous examples from across the country of children being stuck in A&E for over 24 hours waiting for a mental health bed. One child waited over three days. When I work shifts in A&E, I see more and more people coming into hospital in crisis. The increased frequency is deeply concerning. Conditions are getting worse and illnesses are going untreated. We would not allow that in cancer treatment, so why is it allowed in mental health treatment?
Deprivation of liberty and the use of coercion can cause lasting trauma and distress. That is especially true for children and young people who find themselves in these most difficult situations and whose voices are often not heard when decisions are made. We are pleased that patients will have greater autonomy over their treatment in a mental health crisis, and we are glad that the Government have been working with organisations to listen to the experiences of those with learning disabilities or autism, but will the Secretary of State explain what safeguards will be put in place for people with learning disabilities or autism should the worst happen and they find themselves in prison? This is not a straightforward issue. Many people with learning disabilities or autism also live with serious mental illnesses, and we have to make sure that they have their rights protected and have dignity in their treatment.
In our communities, we witness the harsh reality of the health inequalities that so desperately need to be addressed. As the Secretary of State said, black people are over four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act.