Oral Answers to Questions

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with the hon. Lady on both counts. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) was an excellent Public Health Minister, who did exemplary work and drove the agenda with great passion and determination, and he has behaved honourably in every sense.

On the point about cross-government working, the hon. Lady is completely right. The need to join up, breaking down the barriers of silos that sometimes exist between agencies, is vital. There is a huge amount of work under way in all of the areas she mentioned, and I am determined to see that work.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

On Friday, I met two clinical commissioning groups that cover my constituency specifically to discuss mental health and children’s health and wellbeing. While it is an extremely complex issue, does the Secretary of State agree with me that, with the perceived rigorous spending rules requiring health providers to spend only on pure health services, it will remain extremely challenging for them to work with other agencies to support methods, such as those to build resilience, that improve outcomes for children’s health?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this. The most forward-looking CCGs in the country are working with all sorts of partners—the voluntary sector, charities, local authorities—to deliver better services that make people healthier, even if they are not purely medicinal in the first instance. For instance, tennis lessons may sometimes help people, Mr Speaker, as may all sorts of other activities. This is all part of a broadening social-prescribing agenda to get people healthy, however that is best done.