Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase the capacity and geographical distribution of inpatient secure mental health beds.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has advised that work is currently underway with the 15 Adult Secure Provider Collaboratives across England to speed up the safe and timely transfer of appropriately assessed people from prison. This includes identifying existing capacity, including workforce estates and location, that can be reconfigured at pace; identifying where additional capacity, including workforce and estates, may be required; and, scoping at pace, the creation of alternative clinically safe service models.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to review the funding of hospices in England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want a society where every person receives high-quality, compassionate care, including at end of life. We understand that, financially, times are difficult for many voluntary and charitable organisations, including hospices, due to the increased cost of living. We want a society where these costs are manageable for both voluntary organisations, like hospices, and the people whom they serve.
The Government is going to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community, and we recognise that hospices will play a vital role. We will consider next steps on palliative and end of life care more widely in the coming months.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the financial position of each integrated care board at the end of financial year 2023–24.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The financial year-end reports for integrated care boards are still in progress and not yet finalised. We anticipate that final, audited reports will be completed and available in July 2024.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 12 March (HL3021), what is the distribution of each category of commissioned mental health service bed into each integrated care board area.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
NHS England does not hold this data at an integrated care board level.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) high secure, (2) medium secure, and (3) low secure, mental health service beds are in each integrated care board area of England.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The following table shows the amount of mental health service beds available, broken down by security level, as well as when the data was last validated:
Specialised Mental Health Inpatient Services | Commissioned Beds | Last Validated |
Adult High Secure | 715 | October 2022 |
Adult Medium Secure | 2965 | March 2021 |
Adult Low Secure | 3003 | March 2021 |
Total | 6683 | N/A |
Source: NHS England.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people entering prison underwent reception screening for mental health issues; and how many of these were undertaken by a person with a recognised mental health qualification, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Everyone coming into prison either from courts or transfer from another prison or on remission from a psychiatric unit receives the first reception screening. This screening is based on National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines and includes questions on a person’s mental health. The clinicians undertaking the initial reception screening could be either a general nurse or a mental health nurse. We do not have the breakdown of those that undertake reception screenings when seeing prisoners and their qualifications.
Any patient that requires further support or investigations for physical or mental health conditions is appropriately referred on to the relevant team. It is important to note that the initial health screen on reception is to keep people safe in the first few days. A more comprehensive second screening is undertaken within seven days of arrival.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the aggregate financial surplus or deficit for each integrated care board in England at the end of the first quarter of the 2023–24 financial year; and what was the percentage change from the surplus or deficit at the beginning of the 2023–24 financial year.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
At the beginning of each financial year, all integrated care boards (ICBs) will agree a plan for the year with NHS England that includes expected expenditure against budgets for each month. At the end of the first quarter, several ICBs have reported an overspend against the agreed plan for that quarter. A table of the full list of these ICBs is attached.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will respond to the report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill (HL Paper 128), published on 19 January.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department is considering the Committee’s recommendations carefully and we will respond in due course.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the aggregate financial deficit for each integrated care board in England for the financial year 2022–23.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The final financial position for individual integrated care boards (ICBs) for the financial year 2022/23 will be confirmed in their year-end accounts which will be published in due course. The following table shows the latest projected year-end surplus/deficit position reported to the Department by NHS England and shows that 34 out of 42 ICBs are projected to end the financial year in a deficit position.
Integrated Care Board | 2022/23 Year End Surplus / (Deficit) (£m) |
South East London ICB | (1.0) |
North East London ICB | (9.2) |
North Central London ICB | (9.2) |
North West London ICB | (10.8) |
South West London ICB | 7.3 |
Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB | 0.4 |
Birmingham and Solihull ICB | (100.5) |
Derby and Derbyshire ICB | 1.2 |
Lincolnshire ICB | (15.3) |
Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland ICB | (3.0) |
Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent ICB | (0.9) |
Shropshire, Telford, and Wrekin ICB | (25.3) |
Northamptonshire ICB | 5.8 |
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB | (1.6) |
Black Country ICB | (1.3) |
Coventry and Warwickshire ICB | 0.1 |
Mid and South Essex ICB | (27.8) |
Bedfordshire, Luton, and Milton Keynes ICB | (9.0) |
Suffolk and North East Essex ICB | (11.6) |
Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB | (7.4) |
Norfolk and Waveney ICB | 1.7 |
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB | 1.9 |
Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB | 20.6 |
Greater Manchester ICB | (69.8) |
Cheshire and Merseyside ICB | (13.6) |
South Yorkshire ICB | (5.8) |
North East and North Cumbria ICB | (22.8) |
Humber and North Yorkshire ICB | (16.9) |
West Yorkshire ICB | (19.2) |
Kent and Medway ICB | (1.4) |
Frimley ICB | (2.5) |
Sussex ICB | (16.2) |
Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB | (16.3) |
Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICB | (15.5) |
Surrey Heartlands ICB | (43.2) |
Devon ICB | (12.1) |
Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB | (62.0) |
Gloucestershire ICB | (10.0) |
Somerset ICB | (7.2) |
Cornwall and The Isles of Scilly ICB | (7.5) |
Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire ICB | (7.1) |
Dorset ICB | 2.5 |
Source: NHS England
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what, if any, actions they intend to take to ensure that people suffering from mental health crises are not taken to a police custody suite.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
We have announced the development of a new National Partnership Agreement between policing and health partners to ensure that the right agency responds to a mental health incident, removing police involvement earlier in the process where it’s not needed. This will support roll-out of the Right Care, Right Person approach, under which police will only engage in a mental health incident when there is a real and immediate risk to life or serious harm.
We have already achieved a significant reduction in the number of people taken to a police cell as a place of safety in recent years. In 2021/22 a police station was used as a place of safety 254 times in England out of a total of 36,594 Section 136 incidents. This represents less than 1% of incidents and is down from an estimated 8,667 times out of a total of 23,907 such incidents in 2011/12. The Draft Mental Health Bill contains provisions to remove police stations as a place of safety, so that people held under Section 136 will be in more appropriate health-based settings when in crisis or waiting for a place on a specialist ward. The Bill will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.
On 23 January 2023 we set out details on how £150 million of capital investment, first announced in the 2021 Spending Review, will be used to build mental health urgent and emergency care infrastructure. This includes £7 million for specialised mental health ambulances across the country to provide better care and support for people experiencing a mental health crisis.
We are also funding over 160 wider capital schemes including to provide and improve crisis cafes, crisis houses, mental health urgent care centres, health-based places of safety and broader improvements to crisis lines and emergency departments. This will mean care can be provided in more appropriate spaces for those in need, and will reduce pressure on wider parts of the system including accident and emergency.