Mental Health Taskforce

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I praise the storyline editors of “Coronation Street” just as much as I do those of “EastEnders”, which has done a remarkable job in relation to perinatal mental health with Stacey’s story over the past few weeks.

The Government’s anti-stigma campaign will certainly continue. We are much informed particularly by young people, with whom we have worked on Time to Change, to which we have made a further commitment of financial support. Stigma is a terrible thing, and is partly responsible for breaking the link between physical and mental health. The taskforce recommended that the Government deliver on the objective to make sure that more people with mental health problems receive help for their physical issues, so that we can deal with the terrible difference in mortality rates between those with mental health difficulties and other people. Dealing with the stigma, so that people feel able to raise their problems, is an important part of that.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, and I acknowledge the work of the taskforce and its report.

I encourage the Minister, along with his colleagues in the Department for Education, to take a particular interest in the mental health in schools training programme, which has been developed by practitioners to ensure that schools are better equipped to support the mental health and wellbeing of pupils. Will they help to safeguard those interests in a system that is designed to be run in a similar way to the child protection system, with which schools are familiar?

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in these issues. He is absolutely right: in England, a pilot project with 27 schools is being run by the Department for Education to locate and identify a single point of contact in those schools on mental health issues for young people. Depending on the results, more projects can be rolled out. Early identification and support in school are absolutely essential, and that work is under way.

There are a number of different initiatives, sometimes inspired by people who have experienced personal tragedy in their own family. They realise that the tragedy that has befallen their young person might not have happened if their friends had been more aware of their circumstances, or if the school or college had been more aware. We look at all those different initiatives to see how best practice can be spread, but the hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue.