Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Debate between Norman Lamb and Andy Sawford

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I am left totally confused. The hon. Lady has just referred to my complacency, whereas the person who was just sitting next to her, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), paid tribute to my passion in fighting for mental health services. So which is it?

If there was any substance to the hon. Lady’s question, it concerned the importance of mental health services and education working more effectively together and, as was said earlier, the role of schools. As a result of the taskforce, I think we can achieve much better collaboration among schools and mental health services. I also point out, as have hon. Members on her own side, that this is a long-standing problem that goes back far beyond 2010.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister might remember that I wrote to him about a local family who went through a living hell when a young girl was sent from East Northamptonshire to a hospital in Bury, where she was left for weeks; where there was conflicting advice about whether she should be there at all; and where the family felt she was getting worse not better. Will he look specifically at provision in Northamptonshire, particularly the provision of beds for teenagers, and reflect that, to be fair to CAMHS in Northamptonshire, ours is one of the worst-funded areas for health care in the whole country—way off the NHS England target?

[Norman Lamb]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is campaigning on this matter—he is right to do so—and I would be very happy to talk to him further about this case. The circumstances he describes are intolerable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) said, the frustration is that, if some services and commissioners can avoid that, why does it happen in other areas of the country? However, I would be happy to discuss the matter with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Andy Sawford

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

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

Our mandate to NHS England makes it clear that everyone who needs it should have timely access to the best available treatment. NHS England is currently gathering information about access to and waiting times for mental health services. We will use this information to set new national access standards for the first time, to be introduced from 2015.

[Andy Sawford]

The Safe Haven in Corby provided crisis out-of-hours support to 1,300 people with mental health problems last year. For the first time ever, it has been asked to tender for its future funding. It was eight minutes late with its tender, and the service is going to be cut. What will happen to the people who need that service in the future? Will the Minister meet me to discuss it?

[Norman Lamb]

I am very happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman about that. My understanding is that the local CCG undertook a retendering exercise with a view to maintaining and, indeed, improving mental health services locally. As he says, Safe Haven did not submit its tender in time. It had a right to appeal, and it chose not to appeal. The CCG is absolutely committed to ensuring that it improves mental health services locally.

Accident and Emergency

Debate between Norman Lamb and Andy Sawford

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I will not give way; I do not have time.

Up until this week, A and E targets were met in the past 32 weeks in a row. Is that evidence of a crisis? The average wait for people in A and E during Labour’s last year was 77 minutes; it is now 30 minutes. Is that evidence of a crisis? Even though more people are coming through the doors, 2,000 more patients are being seen in less than four hours every day under this Government than under Labour. Evidence of a crisis? I don’t think so. The Opposition are scaremongering, plain and simple. In fact, the College of Emergency Medicine’s president, Cliff Mann, has today said that any crisis in accident and emergency is “behind us”.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)? We are pressing for funding to meet the additional demand in the Kettering accident and emergency department. Will the Minister encourage us in that?

[Norman Lamb]

I applaud the cross-party effort of those Members campaigning for their community, and I am very happy to engage with them further on that matter.

NHS Funding

Debate between Norman Lamb and Andy Sawford

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in a debate that is incredibly important to my constituents. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) for opening the debate. He is aware of my grave concerns about the future of hospital services that serve people in Corby and east Northamptonshire.

It has long been the ambition of people in Corby—a large, important town that is growing—to have their own hospital. I hope that in future we can realise that ambition. For a long time, however—and for the foreseeable future—we will be served by Kettering general hospital for most of our hospital needs. At Kettering general hospital there are 650 beds and more than 3,000 staff. The hospital is more than 115 years old, and received massive investment, including under the Labour Government. I make that point not so much politically point but as a local person who remembers driving down Hospital hill in Kettering and seeing the fundraising barometer outside the hospital and wondering why we relied on car-boot sales to fund vital hospital services.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh, a former Health Secretary, and his predecessors began to put that right, and there was huge investment. Kettering general hospital now has 17 operating theatres and an obstetrics unit that delivers more than 3,500 babies a year. It has something that serves only a few of my constituents but is incredibly important to all of us—a neonatal intensive care unit, or special care baby unit. My own family has had cause to be grateful to that unit and its brilliant staff.

Kettering general hospital offers a 24-hour accident and emergency service, with level 2 trauma services, which sees more than 2,000 trauma patients a year. There are concerns, however, and I have agreed with the hospital and local people to champion certain issues in the House as the local Member of Parliament, including per capita funding of Kettering general hospital, which we believe is inadequate and lower than average compared with other areas. With a growing population and growing health needs, that must be addressed.

Recently, a report on the hospital by Monitor raised serious concerns, particularly about accident and emergency. I have met the hospital chief executive and the chair of the trust to discuss those concerns, and to assure them that I will seek to do whatever I can, including making sure that a case for adequate funding for the hospital is made, so that those concerns are addressed.

The big issue that causes us all concern locally is a major review of health services—the kind of review that other Members have experienced in their areas. In Kettering, the Healthier Together review of five hospitals has already cost more than £2 million; that was the figure in the summer, and I have no doubt that it is rising rapidly. The review has also taken a great deal of time and effort. In early September, together with local nurses and others, I met the people leading that review, as a public member of the trust, and I was incredibly worried about what I heard, both as a user of the services, and as a representative of local people.

The Healthier Together team gave us a pledge card telling us about their plans and giving us some assurances. The context was also set. We were told that the review was driven by a desire for the best clinical outcomes, by expertise, and by research on how local people could be provided with the best health care. We were told that there were considerations to do with more services being provided in the community, and a shift to prevention, which are things I recognise it is important for our local hospital and its partners—the clinical commissioning group and the other hospitals—to consider.

It was slide 2 that really got to the heart of the problem. It told us that the five hospitals face a combined funding gap of £48 million, and that my local hospital, Kettering general hospital, faces a future funding gap of £6 million a year. I have no doubt that the comments that Andrew Dilnot recently made about the real-terms reduction in funding are very much connected to that, but I do not want to make that wider political point again; it has already been made eloquently by my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State. I simply say that all local people recognise that resources are getting tighter and tighter at the hospital.

[Norman Lamb]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my view that in many local health economies, private finance initiatives are causing a massive strain on resources?

[Andy Sawford]

I want to keep my remarks to Kettering general hospital, and I do not think that PFI is the issue there.