Mental Health Treatment and Support

Paulette Hamilton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests because I am an independent lay manager. Everywhere we look in Britain at the moment, public services are crumbling. Chronic neglect by the Conservative Government means that people across the UK can no longer trust that they will be able to access mental health services when they need them.

As a lay manager in Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, I often see the impact that dwindling services and limited resources have on residents across our city. In our local ICB area in December, nearly 3,000 children and almost 50,000 adults were on the mental health waiting list. In my constituency, parents have told me that their children are waiting a number of years for urgent mental health support.

Birmingham and Erdington are not unique cases. Since 2010, the Conservative Government have cut one in four mental health beds across the country as waiting times for treatment have soared. Currently, 400,000 children are waiting for mental health treatment across the UK. They are being denied the help that they need.

I am a mum and a grandmother. Like all parents, I want the next generation to have better opportunities than I did. That is why Labour’s plan to recruit thousands more mental health staff, guarantee treatment within a month and provide access to a mental health professional in every school is so important. It is inconceivable that the Government have failed to put forward their own plan to recruit mental health staff or even reduce the shocking waiting times that our constituents are having to put up with.

I worked in the NHS for 25 years and, like many of my colleagues, I despair at how it has been treated by the Government. This year will mark 75 years of our incredible NHS, but, over the last 13 years, the Conservatives have done all they can to wreck it. People suffering with their mental health cannot afford to wait any longer for the support that they need. We need serious government. We need a Labour Government to tackle the crisis now.