Oral Answers to Questions

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

3. What plans he has to improve the quality and quantity of mental health crisis care services.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

Mental health is a priority for this Government. That is reflected throughout the first mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board. The quality of all services, including crisis mental health, must improve. It is for the Commissioning Board, working with local commissioners and partners, to commission services in response to need.

[Paul Burstow]

I welcome that answer, particularly as regards the strengthening of the NHS constitution. My hon. Friend will accept that a mental health crisis is a very frightening thing to happen to a person and can be life threatening. The charity Mind has shown that there is unacceptable variation across the country in the quality and accessibility of crisis services. Does the Minister agree that just as the Government have rightly shone a light on the variability of physical health services, we need to do the same for mental health services? We need an atlas of variation for mental health services that hon. Members and others can use to challenge local commissioners to improve.

[Norman Lamb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. Atlases of variation are an important way of raising standards and we will be discussing their future use with the new commissioning organisations. He is also right to highlight the absolute importance of having parity of esteem between physical and mental health. The Government’s mandate makes it absolutely clear that there must be parity between mental and physical health services.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

There are 800,000 people in this country who are living with the effects of Alzheimer’s and dementia. For some of those people, challenging behaviour is a serious issue. Will the Minister ensure that every clinical commissioning group has a lead for dementia in the mental health field so that that can be taken seriously in every community in the country?

[Norman Lamb]

That is absolutely a priority for the Government and the right hon. Lady is right to highlight its importance. The NHS Commissioning Board will work with local clinical commissioning groups to ensure that we raise the standards of health and care services, but she is absolutely right to highlight the importance of substantially improving access to dementia services.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Can the Minister clarify how often mental health centres and hospitals are inspected and how often patients are spoken to to help improve the service?

[Norman Lamb]

The Care Quality Commission inspects all services. Of course, there is now a registration system for such services. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the importance of ensuring that mental health services are regarded as just as important as physical health services, which has not always been the case.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that when people are experiencing a mental health crisis, the initial response that they receive when seeking help is vital? What steps are he and his Department taking to make sure that staff in accident and emergency departments are able to respond appropriately?

[Norman Lamb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that important point. A fortnight ago I visited Heartlands hospital in Birmingham, where the RAID—rapid assessment, interface and discharge—team provides brilliant access for people arriving in accident and emergency who have a mental health problem, and ensures that they get immediate access to mental health services. That sort of best practice not only improves health and well-being for those individuals, but saves the system money. We need to spread that best practice across the country. I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it.

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[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

13. What recent representations he has received on strategies to support patients with osteoporosis.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

The Department of Health has received no recent representations on strategies to support patients with osteoporosis. From April this year, osteoporosis was included in the quality and outcomes framework, giving GP practices financial incentives for diagnosing and treating osteoporosis in their patients.

[Mr Amess]

Does the Minister welcome the new Falls and Fractures Alliance that will hold its first board meeting next month? It has been set up specifically to reduce admissions to hospitals resulting from falls, fall-related injuries or hip fractures in the over 65s.

[Norman Lamb]

I very much welcome the establishment of the alliance, and I applaud the work of the National Osteoporosis Society, Age UK, and the all-party group of which I think the hon. Gentleman is a member. We know that if we follow the evidence, we can substantially reduce the number of falls and fractures, thereby increasing health and well-being and reducing the cost to the system.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

14. What the process is for deciding the future of health care provision in south-east London; and if he will make a statement.

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[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the treatment of repeat episode depression by (a) drugs and (b) mindfulness-based intervention.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has evaluated and recommended the use of mindfulness-based therapies as a psychological intervention for the prevention of relapse, within its guideline, “Depression: the treatment and management of depression in adults”. Drug treatment is also useful in the management of enduring depression.

[Chris Ruane]

The number of prescriptions issued for anti-depressants has gone from 9 million to 46 million in the past 10 years. NICE has recommended mindfulness as a better treatment than drug therapy for repeat episode depression, but it has not been taken up by the NHS. Will the Minister meet a delegation of MPs and mindfulness experts from across the UK to discuss how mindfulness can play its full role in helping the NHS and people with mental health problems?

[Norman Lamb]

I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s work on promoting the case for psychological therapies, including mindfulness, and would be happy to meet him and a delegation of experts. The Government have massively increased psychological therapies—nearly 1 million people in the past two years accessed psychological therapies through the improving access to psychological therapies programme. We are totally committed to improving access to psychological therapies to cure the imbalance in access to services for people with mental health problems that has existed for a very long time.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

16. What assessment he has made of the possible effect on patient safety of reductions to ambulance trust budgets.

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[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T2. The new mandate for the NHS includes a very welcome objective for it to be a world leader in end-of-life care. Can we have an indicator in the commissioning outcomes framework on deaths in preferred places of care to ensure that new commissioning groups prioritise better end-of-life care, and to ensure that those who want to die peacefully at home have the best opportunity to do so?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The NHS outcomes framework includes an indicator on the quality of end-of-life care as it is experienced by patients and carers, which is based on the VOICES survey of bereaved relatives. The proposals for reform to the NHS constitution include a right for patients and families to be involved fully in discussions, including at the end of life.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

T3. What action does the Minister intend to take to reduce the number of unplanned emergency admissions to hospital by sufferers of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular conditions?

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[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

T8. A recent Schizophrenia Commission report highlighted catastrophic failings in the care of people with severe mental illness. We know that suicide rates rise during times of economic hardship and that record numbers of people are being detained under the Mental Health Act. The Government have said that mental health should have parity with physical health, so why has funding for mental health services been cut for the first time in a decade?

[Norman Lamb]

Whenever the NHS is under financial pressure, there is the risk that mental health services will get squeezed. As the Health Select Committee identified, that is exactly what happened under the last Labour Government in 2006. I share the hon. Lady’s concern, however, about the report on schizophrenia highlighting how money is used: too many people in in-patient facilities and not enough prevention work. I am committed to working with others to ensure that we use the money more wisely to get better care for those patients.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

T7. Since the Prime Minister made his radiotherapy promise to current and future cancer patients last month, cancer centres all over the country have been telling me that it cannot be delivered, because there is not enough investment in new radiotherapy machines and in the recruitment and training of staff to operate them. Will the Secretary of State give the same financial commitment to the annual radiotherapy fund as he is giving to the cancer drug fund, and will he meet me to discuss the matter?

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[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will be aware that the process of making Kalydeco available to people with cystic fibrosis in England is much further advanced than in Scotland, where the G551D gene is two to three times more prevalent—a point highlighted by the Daily Record yesterday in respect of seven-year-old Maisie Black from Burnside in my constituency. Will the Minister clarify that the roll-out in England will not be restricted, so that young children, who have the least accumulated lung damage and therefore most to benefit, do not lose out on the chance of benefiting from this transformational drug?

[Norman Lamb]

The specialised commissioning groups will receive advice at their December board meetings and are expected to finalise their advice on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of Kalydeco early in the new year. The aim is to provide consistent national advice on the use of the drug for a sub-group of patients with cystic fibrosis.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Aylesbury constituent Mrs Evans-Woodward is a young woman who has had five heart attacks. One evening her husband drove her to Wycombe’s heart attack unit with a racing pulse, but she was turned away to the minor injuries unit, which again turned her away to the accident and emergency unit in Stoke Mandeville, before suggesting that she sit outside and call an ambulance, which she duly did—all of this with a racing pulse of 180. This is not good enough. It is an appalling prioritisation of bureaucracy over simple human care and compassion. Does it not show that the NHS needs to become much more accountable to patients?