NHS: Mental Health Patient Assessment Needs
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest, as my grandson is a severe case of autistic Down’s syndrome.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, we have not considered creating such a pathway. We would expect a patient’s mental and physical health needs to be taken into account when they access NHS services.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thank the Minister for his formal Answer but I should go on to explain that my grandson, Christopher, now 23, has no speech and is unable to explain what is happening to him. He has changed from an apparently happy boy and a loving family member to a person suffering violent outbursts, in which he hits his head as if in pain or he attacks others. His increasingly erratic behaviour results in him being excluded from the health groups from which he has benefited so much in the past. Clinicians have already identified the need for a scan but this must be done under general anaesthetic. They are unable to access any NHS team able to do this as there is no clinical pathway, and in some cases patients known to these clinicians have had to wait up to two years. Why should any mentally disadvantaged child—as he was but he is now growing up—not be able to access a full and necessary examination within weeks rather than years?
Lord Prior of Brampton
It is obviously not possible for me to comment on an individual case but it sounds like a very tragic and a very difficult case. Of course, someone in that kind of position ought to have access to normal NHS facilities and care, and I am at a loss to know why my noble friend’s grandson has not been able to get proper access. The fact that a general anaesthetic is required, and has been said to be required by a clinician, should not make it any more difficult to access that kind of care. I am very happy to look at this as an individual case and, if it is not just an individual case but an example of a broader problem, I shall be very happy to meet my noble friend outside the Chamber to pursue the matter with her.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that NHS staff are a very resourceful group of people and that in the past many of them have found ways of helping patients through these scans and so on when they have found them very difficult? What are the Government doing to ensure that these creative responses to patients’ individual needs can be shared with other members of NHS staff? Will the Government consider some kind of restricted-access online resource centre, through which NHS staff can share their good ideas and what they have found to work?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I think spreading best practice is a perennial problem in the NHS. The noble Baroness gave an example of that but I could give many, many others: we are not good in the NHS at spreading best practice. I hope that the newly reformed combination of the TDA and Monitor into NHS Improvement will be a very useful repository of good practice, in the same way as the IHI is in the USA.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I find that reply singularly disappointing, as the Minister will know that any child exhibiting the kinds of problems that have been described today could be seriously ill—they could have a brain tumour or hydrocephalus. In addition, he also knows that the availability of good mental health services for young people, adolescents and those in their 20s is in serious difficulty at the moment. What are the Government doing to ensure that NHS England is improving these services and making a real effort so that we do not have cases such as this, for I am sure that it is not an isolated incident?
Lord Prior of Brampton
In picking up the general point that the noble Baroness made, the Government have committed a great deal of extra resource to the mental health needs of young people. For example, I cite the NHS mandate and the Health and Social Care Act 2012, in which there is a duty to establish parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. It is also true that one can never do enough, and when one hears about a tragic case such as that described by my noble friend earlier, one has to look very carefully in the mirror and ask whether one could do more. That is why I have offered to meet my noble friend outside this House to discuss the matter in more detail.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, on parity of esteem, is it not a fact that, in their allocations, clinical commissioning groups have reduced the proportion of resource going into mental health services? Will the Minister tell the House what he is going to do about that? He mentioned the mandate. He will know that, in 2012, the mandate said:
“By March 2015, we expect measurable progress towards achieving true parity of esteem”.
Can the Minister tell me that that progress has now been achieved?
Lord Prior of Brampton
I cannot tell the House that we have achieved parity of esteem. Demonstrably, across the country, we have not yet achieved parity of esteem, but we are on a journey to doing so. On the figures that the noble Lord raised, we spent £300 million more last year than the year before on mental health, and every CCG is spending more on mental health this year than the overall increase in their allocation. At the end of October, we will have the figures for the first six months, and perhaps then I can come back to the House and give him those figures in more detail.
Lord Christopher (Lab)
My Lords, was it not the case that a good deal of spreading the news of good practice was usefully done by the Audit Commission, which the Government abolished?
Lord Prior of Brampton
I cannot comment on the Audit Commission. I do not know how much good it did in that regard because I was not here at the time. However, I am very conscious of the fact that spreading best practice across the NHS, particularly operational and clinical best practice, could be a lot better. That would be true in a clinical specialty such as orthopaedics. However, it is also true that, in some hospitals, the flow of patients through the hospital is much better organised than in others. There is a great deal to be learned by spreading best practice. There is also a lot to be learned from around the world. I take the view that we have, in the NHS, probably some of the finest hospitals in the world. We also have some very poor hospitals. It should not be all that difficult for the poor to learn from the best.