Conception to Age 2: The First 1001 Days

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tim Loughton

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), and I completely endorse their points about foetal alcohol syndrome. It feels like we have not caught up with the evidence, and we need to do so urgently, given the awful carnage being done to babies by this dreadful condition, so I congratulate the all-party group on foetal alcohol spectrum disorder on its work.

I also congratulate the right hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton)—

[Tim Loughton]

Hon. Member.

[Norman Lamb]

Oh, I do apologise. To me, he is right honourable. He has shown great leadership, both as a Minister and in his work since, and I applaud him for that. I also join others in acknowledging the fantastic leadership shown by the hon. Members for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and for Nottingham North (Mr Allen).

Like the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, I had the one-to-one seminar with George Hosking from the WAVE Trust. I had it many years ago, but I remember it still very clearly: the evidence he showed me, from Australia and the United States, was compelling. He is rightly on a mission and has had a significant influence, which should be acknowledged, so I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking him for his amazing work.

I want to focus on perinatal mental health. Here, we are dealing with two lives: the mother’s and the baby’s. The impact of mental ill health in the first year after birth is profound. As the hon. Gentleman said, it affects up to 20% of women. We often think of it as post-natal depression, but it goes much wider than that. The London School of Economics’ personal social services research unit and the Centre for Mental Health have produced an important piece of work on the economics of this. They refer to anxiety, psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions, including obsessive compulsive disorder. The impact of these conditions on the mother, but also on the baby and the wider family, can be very profound.

The cost of failure, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North made clear, is enormous. The report by the LSE and the Centre for Mental Health estimates the cost of perinatal ill health as being £8.1 billion at the very minimum. The basis for calculation was the mothers who suffered depression, anxiety and psychosis, but they recognised that other conditions were relevant, too, which have not been costed, so the overall cost is bigger. We must understand that. As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made clear, this amounts to £10,000 for every baby born in this country. The cost of failure is just enormous.

How have we responded to this extraordinary impact? Slowly but surely, things are changing, but if we look at the recently published map on the availability of services around the country—this relates to the UK’s specialist community perinatal mental health teams—we see that in 2015, the map is still horribly red. This does not indicate constituencies held by the Labour party—[Interruption.] Thank goodness! This indicates the parts of the country where no specialist team is available. Let us imagine for one moment that this was the case for stroke care or heart conditions: there would be a national outcry.

No party or Government is responsible for this situation. We are dealing with an emerging understanding, and it is about developing a new service. When I look at the whole of East Anglia, my own region, I see that not a single specialist team is available. That is truly shocking. As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, people are dying, and some even take their own lives, yet these are deaths that could be prevented by the application of specialist services around our country. None of us can be comfortable with the fact that so much of our country does not have the ready availability of support for mothers in this situation.

There is an urgency to ensuring that we act to get the whole country covered. I was pleased when in response to the cross-party campaign for equality for mental health, we had the basic simple principle that there should be equal access to care and support—irrespective of whether people have a mental or a physical health problem. At the moment, that does not exist, but the campaign that we launched in the run-up to the spending review secured a response from the Chancellor of an extra £600 million for mental health. In his statement to Parliament, the Chancellor specifically mentioned the importance of perinatal mental health services. That money must be used.

I end by urging the Minister to do everything in his power to instil a real sense of urgency, with a programme and a timetable to get every part of the country covered by specialist services. I find it unbelievable in this day and age that the CCGs mentioned by the hon. Gentleman have not even started to think about this yet. These are the people who hold responsibility in our NHS for commissioning services for our populations, but a significant number of them have not yet even started the process of thinking about the problem. The message needs to go out from the Minister, but also from NHS England nationally, that this situation is intolerable and cannot be sustained. We must ensure that this Parliament reaches the point by 2020 when the whole of that map of the United Kingdom is green, so that every mother, when she is in need, following birth, can get access to the specialist services that can help her to recover.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tim Loughton

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady made the point not made by her Front-Bench spokesperson, which is that this is a long-standing problem. The disadvantage suffered by mental health has been there for a long time. Indeed, it was exacerbated, if I may say so, by the fact that access and waiting time standards were introduced for physical health, but the previous Government left out mental health. If that happens, it dictates where the money goes. That, combined with a funding system that sucks money into acute hospitals but which in mental health relies on a block contract, means that mental health always loses out. It is this Government who are determined to change that to ensure that mental health is finally treated equally.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Government can take credit for great progress in eliminating mixed-sex wards. The Home Secretary had some very encouraging things to say about children with mental health problems in police custody, and in the Department for Education great strides have been made in respect of kids in residential care homes not being placed well away from home. Many of us fought very hard during the passage of the Mental Health Act 2007 to get rid of the practice of children being placed in adult wards far from home. Will the Minister now, with the same urgency that led to those other successes, ensure that that is eliminated at last? In many cases it is not in the best interests of deeply troubled children.

[Norman Lamb]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work he did in his campaigning on the Mental Health Act and more recently as a Children’s Minister in the Department for Education. I know his passion for the subject and I share his view that it is intolerable that children and young people should go to adult wards. It has been a long-standing issue—it is not new—but it should not happen, just as it should not be the case that children are still placed in police cells. That is why I take the view that we need to ban it in law so that it cannot happen, and there are consequences if it ever does happen.

Care Homes

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tim Loughton

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

Many care homes are signing up to exactly those standards. The more that happens, the more we should applaud and encourage it. The hon. Gentleman is right that we should all be completely intolerant of such abuse and neglect. It is a challenge for the whole of society. Whichever Government are in power need to hold the line of being absolutely intolerant of any failures of care and must demonstrate that when they happen, there are real consequences that will hold people to account.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

As I found out recently when trying to find a suitable home for a relative, trying to get assurances about the quality of care and not just the quality of the buildings, let alone working out how one pays for it all, is a minefield. The truth is that this abuse was uncovered not by the CQC but by the BBC. Following on from the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), could we not have a reporting mechanism, be it through residents, their relatives or volunteer visiting friends, which would be particularly appropriate for those who lack capacity, that would trigger such an investigation by the CQC, with the use of undercover cameras and so on? Could we not have something as high profile as ChildLine that works and that people know about?

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my hon. Friend—or is he right honourable?

[Tim Loughton]

Just honourable.

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Of course the work has to go way beyond just what the CQC can do. I mentioned in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) the fact that organisations focusing particularly on compassionate care now carry out inspections and make reports. I have also mentioned NHS Choices, which means that any member of the public can give their comments on the care experience of a loved one. The more people use their power to highlight unacceptable things that are happening in care homes, and indeed great things, the better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Tim Loughton

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to deliver better access to mental health services for school-age children.

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

The children and young people’s improving access to psychological therapies project, which we introduced in 2011, is about transforming mental health services for children and young people with mental health conditions. The Government’s mental health strategy implementation framework, published in July, suggests actions that schools, colleges and children’s services can take to provide better support.

[Tim Loughton]

The Government should be congratulated on tackling the stigma of mental health by their “No health without mental health” policy, but the growing problem of mental illness among school-age children is a concern and with the demise of the early intervention grant, which included the targeted mental health in schools funding, there is a worry that too many schoolchildren will be neglected. Will the Minister liaise with the Department for Education and with school nurses to make sure that appropriate and timely access to talking therapies and others are available for school age children rather than having to rely on the belated chemical cosh of powerful drugs?

[Norman Lamb]

May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in this area? He has been really impressive and dedicated in his work. I absolutely agree with him about the importance of ensuring access to mental health services for children and adolescents. In fact, the Government are investing over £50 million over a four-year period through the children and young people’s improving access to psychological therapies programme and, critically, involving schools and colleges in that work. I would be very happy to work with my hon. Friend to improve access for children and young people.