Urgent and Emergency Care Review Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Paul Burstow
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Urgent and Emergency Care Review
Paul Burstow Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Hunt
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman might like to hear what the British Medical Association said yesterday about walk-in centres. The BMA is not known for its support of Government policies, but it said that urgent care centres
“were often opened in places with little patient demand…The result has been a lot of money being spent on these facilities with some now closing because commissioners have found there is not sufficient demand”.
That is the problem we are sorting out.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
One long-term cause of pressures in our A and E departments is the lack of parity of esteem between physical and mental health. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is unacceptable that two thirds of people experiencing a mental health crisis do not get access within four hours to a psychiatric assessment? Was it not a failure of the previous Government not to set access standards for people with mental health problems? Is it not time, as the mandate does today, to deliver just that?
Mr Hunt
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. We do need parity of esteem between mental and physical health. The situation puts particular pressure on A and E departments, including the one closest to this House, at St Thomas’s hospital, where people said that the biggest single worry they have and the biggest single thing that makes it difficult for them to meet their targets is the lack of quick access to psychiatric services. We are looking at this matter and he is right to highlight it.