Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of children and young people being able to access treatment and support. If the truth be known, it has always been like this. It has always been the Cinderella of the Cinderella service, which is why we established a taskforce this summer, bringing in a whole load of experts and, importantly, consulting children and young people so that we can develop a modern health service for the mental health problems of children and young people. We hope to report early next year.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

19. As the Cabinet taskforce sets out on this important work, will the Minister reassure me that it will bear in mind the important finding of the Health Committee’s inquiry into CAMHS—Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services—that it is the tier 1 and tier 2 services that really make the difference in preventing the need to access the service when children are much more unwell?

[Norman Lamb]

I very much appreciated and supported the findings of the Health Select Committee report into children and young people’s mental health services. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we need to focus far more on preventing ill health and preventing a deterioration of it. If we can get into schools and work much better at maintaining people’s mental well-being, we can achieve much better results.