Mental Health Act Reform Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Adonis
Main Page: Lord Adonis (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Adonis's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I can reassure the noble Lord only by saying we have put an ambitious report on the table. We will follow it up with a detailed consultation process that will engage Parliament in due course and lead to an ambitious Bill. That will be backed by substantial financial investment; thereby, we hope to make a major impact on the issues he describes, which I recognise and acknowledge.
My Lords, Sir Simon’s report makes no reference to international best practice and gives no internationally comparative statistics—for example, on sectioning. I gave the noble Lord notice of a question I would like to ask about what international best practice the Government have in mind. Will he be able to make available to me, perhaps in correspondence, internationally comparative, population-adjusted statistics for sectioning? This will be important for putting the reforms he suggested in context before we proceed to legislation.
I am enormously grateful to the noble Lord for sending me his question, but I am embarrassed to say that I did not receive the correspondence. I would love to have the figures to hand, but I will write to him with details. If I could gently push back: this is not an easy issue to make international comparisons on, and we are not necessarily led by what other countries do in this area. We have to own this problem ourselves and find an approach that fits the NHS and people in Britain, and we have to be accountable to the people of Britain for our performance.