Health: Mental Health Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Dubs
Main Page: Lord Dubs (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Dubs's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(10 years ago)
Lords ChamberAccess and waiting times for people with mental health problems are a priority for this Government. We are committed to ensuring that access to services and waiting times are on a par with physical health. That is why we have put in place the first national waiting times standards in mental health.
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that according to the widely respected Health Service Journal in April this year there were some 3,640 fewer nurses and some 213 fewer doctors working in mental health than two years ago? Surely it is unrealistic—not to say verging on the dishonest—to talk about the Government putting in place controls on access and waiting times when there is no prospect of achieving them.
If the noble Lord looks across the piece at the workforce statistics he will perhaps be more reassured than he is at the moment. The £400 million that we are putting into talking therapies, for example, will result in a workforce of 6,000 practitioners trained to deliver IAPT. Health Education England has increased the number of mental health nursing training places by 1.5%. In delivering a multidisciplinary workforce, the aim is to have skills that are transferable between different care settings. NICE will be publishing its authoritative guideline on safe staffing. We have already mandated NHS organisations to publish ward-level nursing with midwifery care staffing levels so that there is an incentive for them to make sure that they have their staffing levels right.