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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Preet Kaur Gill)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this important debate, for her long-standing commitment to improving mental health services, and for her phenomenal work in her role as chair of the APPG on suicide and self-harm prevention. I am also grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate and shared experiences from their constituencies. I am sorry to hear of John’s death. Men’s suicide is a huge concern; many of us, myself included, can share personal stories. We need to do much more in that space.
This debate speaks to the heart of what a modern health and care system should be. For too long, mental health has not been given the same attention, priority or esteem as physical health. That has had profound consequences for individuals, families and communities across the country. It also has significant economic impacts, as we heard from my hon. Friend, with an estimated 1.26 million 16 to 64-year-olds economically inactive due to mental health issues in 2024-25. The National Health Service Act 2006 states that health includes mental health. This Government are committed to giving mental health the same attention and focus as physical health, and ensuring that people can access timely, high-quality support, regardless of whether they are experiencing a mental or a physical health condition.
As my hon. Friend said, parity of esteem means recognising that mental and physical health are inseparable. Far too often, services have treated them as distinct issues, when in reality they are connected. Of course, many people experience mental and physical health conditions at the same time, with a cause and effect relationship that goes both ways. We know that poor mental health can increase the risk of developing physical health problems, while living with a long-term physical condition can have a significant impact on a person’s mental wellbeing. People living with severe mental illness experience some of the poorest physical health outcomes in our society, and on average die 15 to 20 years earlier than the general population. That is why we are committed to improving the ways that services respond to people with co-occurring mental and physical health needs.
Care must be co-ordinated around the individual rather than around organisational boundaries, ensuring that people receive holistic support that addresses all aspects of their health and wellbeing. NHS England has developed the mental health personalised care framework, which sets out how services should assess and manage people’s care in partnership with them and in collaboration with all relevant teams. That framework places particular emphasis on joined-up care, safety and risk management. It has been tested in local systems and will be published shortly. I know that will answer some of the questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett, but not all of them, so I shall try to address those points in my speech.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
On wraparound care, we have a fantastic initiative in Winchester where Citizens Advice spends time with patients at Melbury Lodge, the in-patient unit, to help them deal with all their life admin, such as debt issues and money issues. It has been shown that those who receive that service have a shorter stay in hospital, are significantly less likely to be readmitted and are more likely to engage with social services once they have been discharged. Is the Minister willing to meet me and the team to discuss that initiative? For every £1 spent on it, £14.08 is saved in cost avoidance for the NHS.
Preet Kaur Gill
I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the wraparound care in Winchester citizens advice bureau. We need the local health ecosystem to partner with initiatives in the voluntary or charity sector such as that one, and acknowledge their impact, fund and support them. Some may think that things such as debt are basic, but their impact on mental health cannot be overestimated. I am sure that officials will want to meet the hon. Gentleman and others to look at the landscape across the country, because there are some fantastic initiatives that we need to recognise, partner with and support.
The Government are taking action to elevate the status of mental health. For 2026-27, NHS mental health spending is forecast to increase to a record £16.1 billion, representing a real-terms increase of around £140 million compared with the previous year. Alongside that, the mental health investment standard remains in place. Integrated care boards are required to protect mental health spending in real terms over the next three years, ensuring that mental health continues to receive the investment needed to improve services and outcomes.
Investment alone is not enough. We must transform how care is delivered. That is why the 10-year health plan sets out our vision for a neighbourhood health service, which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett mentioned. That is about bringing care closer to people’s homes, communities creating genuinely patient-centred services, and moving away from a fragmented system that often leaves people navigating multiple services without the support they need. I hope the ICBs are engaging hon. Members in all parts of the House to feed into the design of the neighbourhood health centre model and asking about the unmet needs and service gaps in their constituencies and regions.
Danny Beales
The Minister is being kind with her time, as always. As part of our inquiry into mental health services, the Health and Social Care Committee visited the 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centre pilots and Trieste, where the model originated. They have clearly been hugely successful already. The Minister mentioned the broader neighbourhood healthcare changes; can she assure us that the learnings from those hubs will be spread across the country? Will there be a clear road map for rolling out these services to every area?
Preet Kaur Gill
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; this is a great pilot, and there are some real, huge successes. The Government must learn from the impact that the hubs will have, and of course we want to roll them out. That is why we are piloting six community-based health centres across England in Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Whitehaven, York, Sheffield and Birmingham. Those centres provide round-the-clock open access treatment and support for adults with severe mental health needs and work closely with primary care and community services to provide joined-up care.
All hon. Members across the House will recognise that it is not appropriate for someone who is facing crisis or poor mental health to be sat in A&E; that just exacerbates their condition and situation. The community-based health centre pilots show that a different model can work. In May, my noble Friend Baroness Merron visited the community-based mental health centre in east Birmingham, where she met staff and service users to hear directly about the service’s impact. The visit demonstrated the important role that community-based mental health support has in providing earlier intervention, improving experiences of care and helping people to access support before reaching crisis point.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett is particularly interested in how the reforms will benefit her constituents. Although her constituency is not home to one of the six core or the 16 associated community-based mental health pilot sites, a range of community-based support is already available locally. Gateshead Connects hubs provide accessible community drop-in spaces that offer mental health and wellbeing support alongside practical advice on issues such as housing and finances. Residents can access NHS talking therapies through services based at Blaydon primary care centre, and community mental health support networks operating across County Durham provide peer-led groups and safe spaces for people living in and around Consett. Those local services reflect the wider direction of travel in our 10-year health plan, which will bring support closer to people’s homes, strengthen community-based provision and ensure that people can access help earlier, before their needs escalate into crisis.
Significant progress has also been made in building a stronger crisis care pathway. That pathway includes the NHS 111 mental health option; the expansion of crisis cafés, about which we hear from so many hon. Members, as well as sanctuaries and crisis houses; and the roll-out of crisis tech services across England. We have completed delivery of the mental health response vehicle programme, with 88 vehicles now operating across local systems. There is now full national coverage of 24/7 mental health liaison teams in acute hospitals, and we are investing up to £120 million to increase the number of sites with mental health emergency departments to 85.
The Government have also delivered on our commitment to modernise the legal framework that underpins mental health care. The Mental Health Act 2025 brings mental health legislation into the 21st century and ensures that people receiving treatment have greater choice, autonomy and involvement in decisions about their care.
My hon. Friend says that parity of esteem must extend to children and young people, and she and many other hon. Members spoke about cases of children facing crisis. The children and young people’s modern service framework is being developed and remains on track for publication in autumn 2026. The framework will support a more integrated approach to physical and mental health.
Hon. Members rightly spoke about access to services and waiting times. It is unacceptable that some people are waiting far too long to receive the mental health care that they need, particularly children and young people and those experiencing a mental health crisis. ICBs must do more. No child should be left waiting. The Government have delivered three years ahead of schedule our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers across the NHS, in the hope of easing pressures on services and improving access to care. We are also expanding NHS talking therapies and continuing the roll-out of mental health support teams in schools and colleges to achieve full national coverage by 2029. We know that we need to go further.
Adam Dance
Some residents in rural Somerset have said to me that they are waiting 18 months to receive talking therapies. That is just not good enough.
Preet Kaur Gill
I absolutely agree. That is the responsibility of the ICBs, which have been informed that they must make sure that waiting lists come down.
We know that we need to go further. We are developing a new cross-Government mental health strategy for England covering all ages, which will be published later this year. The Department is keen to hear the views of hon. Members from across the House and I am happy to share with any hon. Member details of how they can feed into that work. The strategy seeks to transform mental health support by setting out a plan to respond earlier, reducing waiting times and helping people to remain active. Importantly, it will look beyond the NHS and recognise the critical role of schools, employers, local government and the voluntary and community sector, because achieving parity of esteem is not solely the responsibility of the NHS.
This debate has highlighted both the progress made and the challenges that remain. We are under no illusion about the scale of the task, but this Government are committed to building a health and care system where mental health is treated with the same seriousness, urgency and ambition as physical health. Parity of esteem is not an aspiration; it is a necessity. Through sustained investment, service reform and a renewed focus on prevention, particularly early prevention, we are determined to make it a reality. I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett; I have a huge amount of respect and regard for her, not only because she secured this debate but because of all the work she continues to do. I know that she will continue to hold us to account. I thank all hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions.
Question put and agreed to.