Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Norman Lamb and John Baron(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Norman Lamb
I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for his tireless campaigning on diabetes. He has played an essential role in ensuring that it is brought to public attention. It is critical that people who require care for diabetes get access to the care they need, whether they are living in a care home or in their own home.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
4. What assessment he has made of the role of the comprehensive delivery dashboard in holding clinical commissioning groups accountable for their one-year cancer survival rates.
Norman Lamb
Absolutely, and we are doing it. One of the problems we are having to confront is that when the Labour Government introduced the 18-week waiting standard, unbelievably they left out mental health. When mental health is left out from a standard of that sort, that determines where the money goes, and ever since then mental health has lost out. We are committed to changing that.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Mental Health Services (South-East Essex)
Debate between Norman Lamb and John Baron(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Norman Lamb
I hope that my hon. Friend recognises that I have sought to address his concerns directly, rather than reading from a pre-prepared speech. I share his concern about levels of pay in the upper echelons of the NHS, and I believe that that must be addressed.
On a more positive note, in the short time that I have available let me mention some of the positive things that we are doing. In January, we launched a document called “Closing the gap”, which directly addresses the fact that mental health services always fall behind physical health services. We have stated publicly, and we have put into legislation, that there should be parity of esteem and equality between mental and physical health services. The document identifies 25 areas in mental health services in which essential change is needed. One example is the widespread use of face-down restraint. Such restraint is not acceptable or necessary in a modern mental health service, and many areas have demonstrated how to create positive regimes without the use of such a barbaric approach.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) on securing this important debate. There are various shades of mental health problems, and care in the community is an important aspect of looking after those who suffer from such problems. However, day centres up and down the country, including Mundy House in my constituency, are under threat. Will the Minister look at what more can be done to support day centres as a means of caring for not only mental health patients but other patients and community members generally?
Norman Lamb
I am conscious that I am close to running out of time, but community services often do enormously good work in their local areas. The focus on mental health must shift towards a prevention approach. We must intervene early rather than allowing a problem to deteriorate and acting only after something has happened. We must also focus much more on recovery. So often, we seek to contain people’s ill health rather than helping them to recover in a meaningful sense.
Finally, I would like to mention our crisis care concordat, which will set high standards of crisis care in mental health that have never existed before. We expect every area to implement that concordat to ensure that people, wherever they are in the country, get access to the right standards of care.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Norman Lamb and John Baron(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Norman Lamb
My ambition is that the UK have a global reputation for the best possible care at the end of life. Whether we are talking about the Liverpool care pathway and concerns that have been raised about some care in hospital or care in the community and caring for people at home at the end of life, it is essential that people have a dignified death and the best possible care. Everything we are doing is aimed at achieving that. Where there are specific cases such as the one the hon. Lady raises, the relatives have the right to pursue a complaint, and ought to do so if care has fallen below an acceptable standard.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
14. How the NHS will be held to account on the experiences of cancer patients using the NHS.