NHS: Mental Illness

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as regards GPs, the Royal College of General Practitioners has identified improved care for people with mental health problems as a priority within its enhanced GP training programme, which forms part of the college’s proposals for a new evidence-based four-year programme of training.

As regards the workforce issues, I am aware that there is concern about recruitment into psychiatry. My department and the Royal College of Psychiatrists are looking into this matter. The royal college has established a task force to make recommendations to improve recruitment, and it is investigating the factors before medical school, during medical school, during foundation training and in core and higher psychiatric training so as to get to the bottom of the issue as best it can.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, one of the important recommendations in the LSE Centre for Economic Performance report, which led to this Question, concerns the attitude of other doctors to psychiatrists and the issue that that has in relation to recruitment. The report says that,

“it is routine for”,

surgeons and physicians,

“to make derogatory remarks about psychiatry, which affects not just psychiatrists but also their patients”.

I wonder whether the noble Earl has any answer to that.

[Earl Howe]

The short answer is no, I do not. However, I am aware that the royal college is actively investigating this issue within the terms of its task force, to which I referred in my answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins.