Mental Health and NHS Performance

Mims Davies Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

First, of course what happened in that situation is totally unacceptable, but the hon. Lady makes a mistake to continually bring this back to funding, as it is also about demand pressures and models of care. Let me reassure her about the extra funding that has gone into ambulance services. We have about 200 more ambulances and about 2,000 more paramedics, and every day the ambulance service is doing about 3,400 more blue-light calls than it was six years ago. Significant investment has been made, but clearly more needs to happen.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

The number of mental health patients in police cells is, rightly, down by 80%. People have bravely come to my surgery to talk about when they and their families have been struggling with mental health provision for those between the ages of 18 and 24. I pay tribute to Solent Mind and Southern Health, which are doing their level best to deal with this issue. One issue directly affecting that age group is the tier system, and people not being “sick enough” and not being sure where they should be going. Will the Secretary of State please confirm that he will focus on recruiting specialists in this area, because it is not about funding in my local clinical commissioning group—it is about finding the people to help those in need?