Mental Health Support

Simon Opher Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

On World Mental Health Day, I am wearing this slightly ghastly yellow tie. May I also do a little promotion? In room M in Portcullis House at 3 o’clock, at the end of the debate, we have some young people, through YoungMinds, telling us what they think of the service. It is really important, particularly with young people, to make sure that we develop services that they want and that we do not dictate.

I am still a practising GP in Stroud. More than 90% of mental health consultations take place in primary care and more than 40% of GP consultations concern mental health. I am sure the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) will concur with me on that front. I would like to divide mental health into two sections. There is serious mental illness, which is serious and enduring, affecting about 130,000 people in this country. I will make a little plug: they tend to die 10 to 20 years earlier than other people and we must promote their physical health.

The other area is anxiety and depression. We have 8 million people in this country on antidepressants—selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—and at least 2 million of them are trying to get off. We need to ensure we do not over-medicalise mental health. I was pleased to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford said about mental wellbeing and mental health. We all get a bit pissed off sometimes—that is normal for humans—and it is extremely important that we do not conflate that with mental ill health.

[John Glen]

May I just say how much I agree with that remark? We may disagree about resourcing and what has happened over the past 14 years, but we need the confidence to talk about building resilience and prevention so that people do not get to the point where they need medical intervention. We have the responsibility to talk about that in this place and in our communities so that we get to the root causes, which are not always to do with socioeconomic matters.

[Dr Opher]

Absolutely; I fully agree with that.

I want to make a couple of comments about the state of mental health services, for which there are extraordinary waits: a patient of mine had to wait six months following a suicide attempt. That is simply not good enough. In Stroud, we have to wait four years for neurodiversity assessments because we do not have enough resource. In my opinion, we need to move the resource into the community.

I also support what my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford said about health and education. We need mental health support teams in our schools, and we must spread SEND provision evenly.

The Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention is with us, so I want to talk about the prevention of mental health issues. There is quite a lot of evidence about promoting maternal and infant mental health, and also about parenting and bullying at school. Using arts and culture is an incredibly strong way of improving mental health.

I was impressed with what my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said about the community basis of mental health treatment. For many lower-level conditions, there is no need for consultant-led care. Support that takes place in the community costs much less and can be really effective.

The CAMHS waiting list is appalling, and we have a crisis with SEND and delays with education, health and care plans. We do not have enough educational psychologists either. I want to stress what my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford said about care co-ordinators. Young people’s social prescribers are very effective and tend to de-medicalise things that can be supported in the community.

I am really impressed that we are going to get 8,500 more mental health workers. I am also impressed by what they will be doing in schools. We need to improve the physical health of people with serious mental illness, reduce the number of SSRI antidepressant medications, and promote social prescribing, the arts and community care in our mental health services.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Can I just remind Members about modes of expression? I will be diplomatic about it.