Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health Services

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The mental health of children and young people is completely fundamental to the new strategy, which will cover all ages and be published later this year. But what really needs to be done, as I know the noble Baroness is aware, is to transform mental health care in this country, because the system currently responds too late, is not reducing waiting times and is allowing distress to escalate before intervention. The strategy will work to turn all that around, because we need that system-wide change.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Children’s Commissioner’s report is a timely reminder that we continue often to respond to crisis rather than preventing it. Twenty years ago, during the passage of the Mental Health Act, Parliament strengthened the safeguards around the admission of children into adult psychiatric wards. That should happen only in exceptional circumstances and only with specialist assessments. At that time, more than 350 children had been admitted, some as young as 11, into adult psychiatric wards. Ten years later, the figure was exactly the same. Can the Minister tell the House what the position is today? Also, what further action is being taken by education and community services to prevent that crisis in the first place?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I do not have the figures the noble Lord very fairly asks for, but I will certainly ensure that they are provided. He will be aware that Parliament recently passed the Mental Health Act, which updated the Mental Health Act to which he referred. The real issue here is about a move to prevention rather than waiting for crisis. That is our whole direction of change.

Prostate Cancer Screening: AI

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I wish the noble Lord well as he deals with the diagnosis. I am sure that many would associate with his kind comments about the NHS care he has received.

I very much agree that early diagnosis is key. That is why we have introduced the first targeted prostate cancer screening programme. It will roll out next year and will focus on those at the highest risk. To the noble Lord’s question on AI, there is a whole range of ways in which we will gather the information necessary—for example, developing a new National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical knowledge summary. That will support discussions for those men who are not eligible for this programme. Also, through the cancer programme innovation open call, we will pilot the use of AI to assist radiologists using MRI to detect clinically significant prostate cancer. There is much scope in this area, and indeed our 10-year plan confirms that.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, while artificial intelligence may improve the interpretation of diagnostic tests and support earlier identification of prostate cancer, does the Minister agree that technology alone will not reduce late diagnosis unless it is embedded within a wider prevention and early detection strategy? What steps have been taken to ensure that AI tools are integrated into primary care pathways, with targeted outreach to high-risk groups, particularly Black men, and equitable access to different communities?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Yes, I agree with the noble Lord. While we are ambitious about the benefits of AI and wish to embrace them, we are equally clear that safety, fairness and public trust have to come first. That means that the National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare, which was established by the MHRA, will review the current regulations and provide the recommendations for a new regulatory framework. I assure your Lordships’ House that AI always will support professionals, not replace accountability.

Integrated Care Boards: Budgets

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the Lib Dem Benches.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

In February 2025 we published an overview of core community health services, Standardising Community Health Services, in order that ICBs should not just bear it in mind but act on it when planning for their local populations. I know that noble Lords are aware of this, but I often remind myself that ICBs are the best place to ensure that local health services meet the needs of local people. To assist the noble Baroness, we have also set very clear ambitions in our medium-term planning framework that mean that, by 2028-29, at least 80% of community health service activity should take place within 18 weeks, which would bring it in line with targets for elective care.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Sir Chris Whitty produced a report on coastal health that exposed deep and persistent health inequalities in many of our coastal communities. Coastal communities, about 55 towns, make up nearly 20% of the UK population. Five years later, can the Minister tell the House what has changed as a result of that report? How will integrated care boards be encouraged to invest in prevention and community-based services in those areas? They are big enough to have problems but not big enough to have the infrastructure surrounding them.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I take the noble Lord’s point, but allocations take account of factors such as rurality and the different costs of providing care. For example, the formula says that reflecting longer travel times in sparsely populated areas for emergency ambulances, which would make the costs higher, is permitted; travel time for community services also reflects that additional time. The financial allocations are far more sensitive to the needs of local areas than they have been.

Drug-related Deaths in England and Wales

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

As always, I pay close attention to the contributions of my noble friend, who makes helpful observations. We do indeed need to continue our work in this area. It is quite important to look back at the history that Dame Carol Black reported on. She talked about one of the difficulties being that funding for community drug and alcohol services was subsumed into the public health grant in 2013, which meant that by 2019-20 funding for those services had been reduced by over a third. That is a £212 million disinvestment. The result of all this is that drug use has increased, with all the major indicators of its harm. This is something we need to turn around.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I echo what the Minister has just said. The last Labour Administration set up the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse and ring-fenced £800 million to provide treatment when drug users needed it. It reduced drug-related crime, drug use plateaued, and drug-related deaths were at an all-time low. Sadly, this funding was pulled suddenly, which resulted in the highest level of drug-related deaths ever, with drug use on the increase and drug-related crime going up. Can we go back to some of the sensible ideas we had about providing treatment for drug users?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My ministerial colleague Andrew Gwynne will be looking at how we improve drug and alcohol addiction services. In the light of recent Office for National Statistics data, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has an action plan to reduce drug and alcohol-related deaths. Because of this recent data showing major increases, it will review the plan to make sure it is properly grounded and effective.

General Practitioners: Shortage

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As part of the joint NHS England and NHS Improvement and DHSC bureaucracy review—there is such a thing—we have been working across government to reduce unnecessary bureaucratic burdens. There have been a number of key work streams, including a new appraisal process and digitisation of the signing of some notes, along with work to reform who can provide medical evidence and certificates and who can provide notes—nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists and others. We are continuing to look through the process to engage with GPs to see how we can remove more such administrative burdens.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, looking at wider health workforce issues, I understand that we need another 2,000 radiologists in the next five years and that it is highly unlikely that we will be able to produce them. That is the pessimistic note. On an optimistic note, I heard recently that Apollo, the large healthcare provider in India, in partnership with the royal college and the GMC, has been training up 150 high-quality radiologists every year, some of whom are coming to this country. Does the Minister approve of such schemes, and is the department doing more work in places such as India where we can recruit high-quality medical staff?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question, but also pay tribute to his commitment to tackling racism in our society.

We know that there are countries that train more people than they have places for in their country. They do that, first, to help those people get a better life elsewhere, but also because remittances are much better than foreign aid for many of those countries. I frequently mention the fact that it was immigrants from the Commonwealth who saved public services in this country after the war. We should remember that and continue to encourage people from the Commonwealth to come to this country. Sadly, for some reason, noble Lords quite often do not want them and make up all sorts of excuses for trying to block non-white people from outside Europe.

Mental Health: Young People

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Massey for giving us the opportunity to debate this important and pressing issue. She has great expertise in the care and welfare of children and young people, which is evident in all the contributions that she makes to the House. It has been an interesting debate and noble Lords have raised a number of important questions. I look forward to the Minister’s response; given the challenging environment, I do not envy him.

The Government pledged £1.25 billion for improving children’s mental health services and £250 million to improve CAMHS provision for each year of this Parliament. However, in spite of these commitments at a national level, those funds are not reaching children’s mental health services and disinvestment is taking place at local level. The Government would argue that there have been no reductions in funding; in essence, that is correct, as there have been no direct cuts from central government. However, we know that the NHS is underfunded and social care is in crisis. The cuts to CAMHS budgets are the result of reduced funding to the NHS and local authorities, which then make cuts to local services and staffing levels. The impact of all this, as so graphically highlighted by a number of noble Lords, is that children and young people and their parents are unable to access services when they most need them.

In January this year, the Government announced that they would be publishing a Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health. Will the Minister give us an indication of when this will be published? I understand that the Green Paper will contain new proposals for improving services across the system and increasing the focus on preventive activity across all delivery partners. I warmly welcome this, but with a note of caution.

I have four questions for the Minister. First, will he assure us that the proposals will be adequately funded? Secondly, as the Government will not interfere with local decision-making or ring-fence money, how can he assure us that any national funding is used as intended by the local commissioning groups? Thirdly, I welcome the focus on preventive activity across all delivery partners—education, health, social care and the voluntary sector—which I believe is a crucial part of the solution to developing a good quality of care, a point echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm. Are the Government proposing to issue guidance that will direct these partners to develop new ways of delivering children and young people’s mental health services that are collaborative and integrated? They should look at innovation, given the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, around technology—I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, mentioned that, too.

Fourthly, any new proposals must involve service users. Will the Minister assure us, in the spirit of the report “There for you”, that the people who use services and their families are placed firmly at the centre of any plans in a meaningful, not tokenistic, way, in order to ensure that their voices are listened to, heard and acted on, especially those very vulnerable young people whom my noble friend Lord Cashman highlighted in his speech? It is vital that we build a sustainable future for children and young people’s mental health services. To do anything less risks failing an entire generation of children and young people.

Mental Health: Children and Adolescents

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, transparency is critical to this and every CCG will have its improvement assessment framework. Unless I am badly mistaken, they will all be in the public domain and it will be possible to look at the relative performance of each CCG. NHS England will also produce its own matrix and integrated dashboard, which will have all the key information about funding, the numbers of people accessing mental health provision and the improvements that those people achieve once they are in the system.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, from the mental dataset it is very clear that black and Asian minority ethnic adults are overrepresented in the mental health field, but the data on CAMHS are very inconsistent. They show that young black and Asian people are underrepresented, despite the fact that they are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, excluded from school more and overrepresented in the care system. Is it a recipe for disaster if young black people with challenging behaviours are being pressed through the criminal justice system as opposed to receiving good, early mental health care? Is that the reason why 40% of young people in secure institutions are from a BME background?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

If it is indeed the case that young black and Asian people are not attending school and are going into the criminal justice system because they cannot get access to mental health services on the same basis as other children, it will be a national scandal, to be honest. I will certainly take away those figures. I have not seen David Lammy’s report, which I gather came out this morning. The noble Lord said that 40%, I think, of all young people in secure detention are black or Asian—I think in London it is 80%, which is a staggering statistic.

Psychiatric Units: Child and Adolescent Patients

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My honourable friend Alistair Burt, the Minister for Care Services, and I accept that the lack of clear knowledge on how many deaths there have been in psychiatric care settings is not satisfactory or acceptable. I think the difference from the figure of nine in the “Panorama” programme is partly because the figure of four is from 2013 whereas the figure of nine probably goes back to 2010. Nevertheless, it is essential that we clear that up and get those facts straight. Alistair Burt has agreed to meet Inquest to do so.

As far as investigating these awful tragedies when they happen and learning from them, where someone is detained under the Mental Health Act and a suicide happens there is a requirement to inform the CQC, as the noble Lord will know. For example, where a child is not detained under the Mental Health Act, there is no such requirement. We are looking at this very thoroughly and when my honourable friend in the other place has completed his work I will write to the noble Lord with our findings.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to carry on the discussion about admission to psychiatric hospitals. During the passage through this House of the 2007 mental health legislation, we identified that more than 350 children were placed inappropriately on adult psychiatric wards every year. One assumes that, almost 10 years on, that figure should have dramatically dropped and we should not see children placed on adult psychiatric wards. Can the Minister shed any light on whether we know how many children are still placed on adult psychiatric wards and what is being done to stop that happening?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I think the figure for children on adult psychiatric wards is 391. It is far too high. It was described in the “Panorama” programme as the Cinderella service of a Cinderella service. What has come to light in the work done by the Sunday Times, “Panorama” and Norman Lamb in the other House is that we have a very serious problem here. It is not going to be solved overnight. The Government have committed to spend £1.4 billion over this Parliament to improve child and adolescent mental health care, but we have a long way to go.

NHS: Mental Health Services

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

We agree entirely with the recommendations in the task force report regarding the need for a revolution in transparency of information about mental health, and that will include spending. Even when adjusted for need, I think that there is almost a twofold variation in the spending on mental health from one CCG to another, so we entirely accept the recommendations.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, going back to the noble Baroness’s comment about children and young people, given that one in 10 six to 15 year-olds suffers from a diagnosable mental health condition but that only 25% to 35% access the support they need, can the Minister provide assurances that there are no plans to change the funding for the training of psychotherapists, who do valuable work with these children in the NHS?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I can give the noble Lord the assurance he wants. There are no plans to change the way in which funding for the training of psychotherapists is done at the moment.

Health: Black and Minority Ethnic Psychiatric Patients

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I will certainly have a word with Alistair Burt, the Minister of State for Health, who is having the meeting to which the noble Baroness referred. I will bring her comments to his attention.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister was chairman of the CQC so he will be well aware that the Care Quality Commission has a responsibility to lay before Parliament an annual report on the monitoring of the Mental Health Act, which it took over from the Mental Health Act Commission when it was abolished. The Mental Health Act Commission used to produce a biannual report with a very significant chapter on the details that the Minister just talked about—the disproportionate number of BME detained patients, the disproportionate use of antipsychotic drugs, and their use at levels above BNF recommendations. Why does the CQC not present that level of data and evidence any more on a yearly basis? Without the evidence and data, how can it take steps to tackle this important area?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. I do not have an answer to his question except the straightforward, “I do not know”. I hope that when the WRES data on staff come through, they can be extended to patients and carers as well—as suggested in the recent report by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. That information and evidence should then be made available.