Mental Health and Well-being of Londoners

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak on this subject, and congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on securing the debate.

The hon. Lady went through a lot of statistics, which I do not intend to repeat, but I will touch on some of the areas that she did not cover. Briefly, I wish to look at what is already occurring in the capital city, the cost of mental health and the action that I would like the Minister to take.

It is unfortunate that the hon. Lady did not acknowledge the work that the Mayor of London is already doing on this issue. Indeed, he has assisted in several projects, including the Pan-London Dementia Action Alliance and the Local Authority Mental Health Challenge, and he has worked with a range of partners to influence people, including many Members in this House. He has also worked with NHS London and the boroughs to support young people. Importantly, he has used his own office, the Greater London authority, to look at the way that it treats staff with mental health issues.

Some time ago, I wondered whether I would employ someone with a mental health condition, and I concluded that I would. What pleased me about my own self-searching was that when I considered people with other handicaps, I realised that I would not be able to employ somebody with a physical handicap simply because of the layout of this building; they would not be able to get around the Palace estate. It did challenge me to think about myself and how I approached mental health within the workplace.

Let me raise a few points from the Mayor of London’s report, “London mental health: the invisible costs of mental ill health”, which the hon. Lady did not mention, although she did pick up on quite a few of its figures, including the £26 billion a year we spend on the economic and social costs of mental health issues in London. She also mentioned that one in 10 young children has a significant clinical mental health problem.

I am aware that the London boroughs—my borough of Barnet comes second in terms of spending—spend about £550 million in this area. When I was a councillor in the London borough of Barnet, as indeed the Minister was, we were keen to ensure that we not only cared for our looked-after children, but played our part as a health provider in spending on mental health disorders.

I am also aware—as I am sure other Members are—from looking around my surgery or meeting my constituents that a significant number of people in the capital suffer from depression. Indeed the Mayor’s report shows that just over 41% of people suffer from some kind of anxiety compared with 38% in other areas. What is concerning is that those figures are higher in inner London than in the outer-London boroughs. It would be interesting to find out why that is, because we could then direct resources as necessary. Indeed, we could look at local authority funding. We could lobby the Minister and the Department to ensure that out constituents were not losing out on necessary treatment because of the spending in local authorities.

I wish to make two other points. One relates to the criminal justice system. Back in the summer, I spent some time with a Barnet police team and Inspector Moseley. The biggest gripe they had related to their ability to address and to help people with mental health issues. One area where I diverge from the hon. Lady is this idea that because someone has a mental health illness they will be picked up by the police. The police will pick up people if they look like they are going to harm themselves or others, and then they will invoke section 136.

[Ms Abbott]

I probably did not make myself clear. I was saying that people of colour—black and minority ethnic people—are far more likely to enter the mental health system as a result of being picked up by the police. That is all I was saying. I was not making a general point, but a specific point about that being one of the main ways we enter the mental health system.

[Dr Offord]

I am grateful for that clarification and I thank the hon. Lady for it.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman was saying about his experience with the police in his borough of Barnet. I have similar discussions with the police in my borough and although many of them are well aware of the vulnerability of people with mental health issues, it seems that there is a lack of consistency in the Metropolitan police training and a lack of continual awareness-raising for police officers, before they attend the scene, on the need to look for a mental health condition when they find somebody behaving in an odd or strange manner on the street.

[Dr Offord]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, which is certainly something that I would be willing to take up with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. That was not my experience, but as it has been the hon. Gentleman’s, I think it is a useful footnote for me to take back to show that the approach is not the same all over London. I am grateful for that.

I realise that the Minister is a public health Minister and not a Minister in the Home Office, but I am keen that police officers should not be delayed for up to eight hours of their shift by taking people to hospital to seek an assessment under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 only to find that a doctor is not available and no assessment can be made. I have spoken to several custody sergeants who have made the point that I will make again: a police cell is not a substitute for a place of safety in the form of a hospital. I am keen to take that up with the Home Office myself.

The Mayor’s report said that of every £8 spent on long-term health care, perhaps £1 is spent on people with mental health issues. I spent two hours this morning at the Whittington’s wonderful ambulatory care centre opened by the Government, and I congratulate them on that. It is easy to see people who clearly have long-term medical health problems, and one suspects that their mental health might be in the same fragile state as their physical health. If we include the £1 in every £8 spent on long-term health care, that adds another £2.6 billion to the £26 billion that we are spending on health care in London cited by hon. Lady. We certainly need to address that.

I am aware that in west London there has been an initiative as part of the London growth deal to help people to get into employment. Indeed, the local enterprise partnership has secured money from the Government’s transformation challenge award, and I congratulate the Government on that. I want to see more work going ahead.

It is not only people with long-term health conditions who are likely to suffer from mental health issues, but the long-term unemployed as well. I understand that approximately 46% of the people claiming employment and support allowance for more than two years have mental health issues. I speak not as someone judging those people but as someone who has experienced mental health issues in my family and have seen the consequences of that. Indeed, the Daily Mirror was kind enough to publish an article on me and the consequences of mental health issues in my family. Although most of it was wrong, I will put that to one side. I will not use the Chamber as a confessional, but the media have an obligation and a responsibility to report issues to do with mental health in a more positive and indeed less derogatory fashion than they have.

Finally, I pay tribute to colleagues who have worked hard on this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) was instrumental not only in securing a debate in this House to which I was able to contribute but in promoting mental health issues through some of us writing an article for a pamphlet he published. I am grateful to him for that. I also congratulate my Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), who introduced a Bill to allow people with mental health disorders to stand in this place.

Although I am proud of this Parliament’s record, I would like Government action on the employment of people with mental health issues, and more Government action to provide people with a place of safety that is not a police cell. I would like the health service to ensure that its mental health professionals are always available, so that police officers do not spend their time waiting in accident and emergency departments for a professional to see a person who has been sectioned under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. I look forward to the Minister’s response.