Mental Health Treatment and Support

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

There is no doubt that our mental health system is broken. Like many other Members, I receive hundreds of emails from my constituents about the dire state of mental health services, and there is a story for every age and every system failure, but today I want to focus on young people, particularly students.

It will come as no surprise that the Mental Health Foundation found that 40% of students are not coping well with their anxiety. In Oxfordshire, a survey by The Tab in 2022 found a staggering 82% of students at Oxford Brookes University had self-medicated with drugs or alcohol to cope with mental health issues. Where students know that they cannot rely on the NHS, an added burden is put on university staff. Tutors increasingly find themselves acting as therapists or counsellors for their overburdened, ill or anxious students.

Oxford University is working hard to improve services. It has come up with a joint mental health committee and a more common approach across the colleges and departments. It deserves praise for that, but the students I have spoken to have made it clear that

“University wellbeing services are not and cannot be a substitute for adequate mental health care”

and those gaps have dire consequences when severe mental health issues are left untreated. My constituents Jacquie and Mark faced every parent’s worst nightmare when their son Rory reached crisis point. Rory was suffering from anxiety and depression and found no support after a year of absence. He tragically committed suicide at university at just 22. His parents told me that

“we can’t bring Rory back, but we can help other young people preparing to go to uni.”

They are calling for a statutory duty of care for universities, which would force them to take proactive steps and intervene where a student is clearly at risk of harm. It is just common sense. It already exists between employers and employees. All we are asking is for the same duty of care to apply to students.

But, as we all know, the problems in young people’s mental health services are not restricted to those at university. So many people tell me the system is broken: parents, teachers, educational psychologists and clinical psychologists all identify the same failings. One parent wrote to me:

“I am breaking my heart listening to my son saying horrible things about himself, threatening to take his life, and struggling with his mental health in general. Next year we would have been on the waiting list for four years and nothing will probably happen.”

That story is not unique.

So it is left to voluntary organisations and local authorities to step in where this Government are clearly failing. Oxfordshire Mind and Restore do incredible work. Last year, I visited The Abingdon Bridge, a fantastic charity that provides specialist support for 13 to 25-year-olds. When I visited, it had 50 young people on its waiting list, who had to wait up to 24 weeks for an assessment and a further 10 weeks for counselling. Shockingly, that is still much shorter than CAMHS, where the waiting list is between two and four years.

We know how to fix this; it is about more funding. A senior healthcare professional in Oxfordshire told me that

“every pound spent on a child’s mental health saves thousands in the future.”

It is this Government who are failing our young people and their parents. The Government are dragging their feet. Young people and their parents deserve so much better than this.