Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Gentleman makes the important point that there has been an historical disparity between the priorities given to mental health and physical health conditions. That is why we have legislated for parity of esteem between mental and physical health, why we are introducing access targets for patients using mental health services for the first time—that is a big step forward—and why we have increased funding for mental health services by £300 million this year.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

In the first few weeks of a child’s life, the mother often visits their general practitioner regularly, so I applaud the Government’s work on recruiting more health visitors and midwives. Does the Minister agree that GPs need to be sharper at identifying post-natal depression in mothers, because it can be so destructive to the lives of both the mother and the child?

[Dr Poulter]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. A lot of work is going on with the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Psychiatrists to improve GP training and skills in mental health more generally. The specific key to this is providing the right early years work force, which is why it is so important that this Government have invested in additional health visitors to give each and every child the best start in life. The latest figures from NHS England show that the number of health visitors has increased by more than 3,000 under this Government.