Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am aware of the report that she talks about. We know that half of mental health conditions become established before the age of 14, which is why early intervention is so important. In July, I announced an expansion in the mental health workforce—another 21,000 posts. A number of those will be in children’s mental health, to address the issues she raises.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Secretary of State may know that because of a reduction in the number of mental health clinicians in Cumbria, the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has now chosen to end consultant psychiatric call-out care from 8 pm to 9 am. It would have started last week, but it is going to start in the next two or three weeks. That means, as I am sure he is aware, that it will not be possible to section people under the Mental Health Acts between those hours unless they are within an NHS facility. People in police stations, people in care homes and people at A&E departments will not be—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If the hon. Gentleman wants to make an application for an Adjournment debate, he can do that on a subsequent occasion. I think we have got the gravamen of his question.

[Tim Farron]

The question is: does the Secretary of State agree that that is not an appropriate use of resources, and will he provide the resources that are needed?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very serious issue. I will not go into it in detail now, but I will certainly look into it closely and get back to him, if I may. Obviously it is very important.