Mental Health In-patient Services: Improving Safety

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The chair is to be appointed, and given that statutory basis and the independence of the chair, it would be wrong for me to pre-empt the terms of reference. People can look to other statutory inquiries and come to a conclusion. The inquiry is not starting from scratch, and part of the reason we originally went with a non-statutory inquiry was because of the desire for speed. Of course, Dr Strathdee has done a huge amount of work and it will be available to the new chair of the statutory inquiry. One can look to other inquiries and draw conclusions, but I would expect it to move more quickly in this instance because a significant amount of work has already been done.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the statutory inquiry, which is a step in the right direction. I also welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on families. Ensuring family involvement in the care of mental health in-patients not only improves patient outcomes but enables proper scrutiny and questioning of care. In regions such as the south-west, many patients facing the most serious mental health crises receive care outside the region, which is often a long way for families to travel. Is he considering the increased commissioning of local provision so that families can know their loved ones are being well cared for? Many families will be concerned about the statement and the experiences of patients in Essex. The right care and the best care for many patients is closer to home.

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point, and he is right that a particular downside of out-of-area placements is often the distance from families. Indeed, one can see in the data that there is often a corresponding uptick in issues of harm. The crux of his point is very valid. That is why we are committed to building new facilities, with three new hospitals for mental health announced in the statement I gave on the new hospitals programme; that included three new mental health ambulances. This is also about preventing people from needing in-patient care through our crisis cafés, our earlier intervention in community services and the interplay with 111. More fundamentally, it is about giving greater power to commissioners on a place-based basis. The reforms through integrating health and social care, having fewer targets from the centre and allowing more devolved decision making mean that those areas that want to put more money into in-patient mental health, for example, have greater flexibility to do so. The point the hon. Gentleman raises is extremely important and it is exactly what we are facilitating.