Oral Answers to Questions
Amanda Solloway Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
With respect to Pauline Cafferkey, who is a very brave lady and who gave very good service to this country and the people of Sierra Leone with her work during the Ebola crisis, the hon. Lady will understand that disciplinary procedures are an independent matter. They are not dealt with by the Government. They have to be done at arm’s length and we have to respect whatever is said or done.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
Glenfield Hospital Children’s Heart Surgery Unit
Amanda Solloway Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Liz Kendall
That is right, and in fact Glenfield’s ECMO training is currently being provided not only to people from three other UK centres, but to people from seven other countries. NHS England seems to think that that work can be picked up and transferred somewhere, quickly and immediately, without loss of quality. In fact, as I know from speaking to many clinicians and nurses, that is not as easy as NHS England says.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this important debate. Given that Glenfield’s outcomes are among the best in the country, and having listened to accounts of the expertise it offers, I wonder whether she will, with me, encourage the NHS to rethink its decision to close it.
Liz Kendall
Absolutely. It would be a big mistake and it does not have to be this way. The unit is improving its care. It already has some of the best outcomes in the country. If we manage the referral patterns, we can ensure that Glenfield and other units continue to improve their care and support. I am sure that the 41 patients from the hon. Lady’s constituency who are currently being treated at Glenfield will appreciate her speaking out.
UHL is one of five tier 1 providers of acute specialised services in the midlands and the east region. Our amazing paediatric intensive care unit is part of a network of centres covering 17 million people. Any significant change in the number of children with complex heart problems being moved away from UHL will have a serious impact on the PICU and destabilise the network. That is not my view—I am not a clinician—but what the clinicians in the hospital tell me, yet so far NHS England has failed to publish any risk assessment of those knock-on effects on Glenfield’s ECMO or paediatric intensive care. The continuing uncertainty about the unit is terrible for the clinicians who are working there and trying to improve care. The threat of closure may be one of the reasons why it is not receiving as many referrals as it normally would, but it is also deeply destabilising for the families whose children need ongoing care and support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Amanda Solloway Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Alistair Burt
Although there is a general shortage, to which my right hon. Friend referred when speaking about the work being done to recruit, retain and return GPs, bursaries are available in particularly difficult areas as incentives for people to go to such areas. NHS England concentrates on trying to ensure that under-doctored areas are properly resourced.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
The recently published Mental Health Taskforce report recommended that NHS England should by 2021 support at least 30,000 more women annually with specialist mental healthcare during the perinatal period. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that the Department will be working to reach that target?
Mental Health Taskforce Report
Amanda Solloway Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on securing this important debate and affording us the opportunity to look more closely at the excellent mental health taskforce report.
I want to highlight some issues from the report. First, I completely agree that more children and young people should benefit from an increase in high-quality mental health support when they need it. The pressures on young people in today’s climate have too often been ignored. Social media, education, home life and even peer pressure have an astounding effect on young people. Those are just a few everyday factors that are often overlooked and may result in young people suffering in silence.
The report’s recommendations would give individuals the support that they need to overcome their difficulties and continue to develop their talents throughout their education, and subsequently their employment. Crucial to tackling mental health illness across the UK is the need to tackle individuals’ problems at an early age, and certainly when the first warning signs are elicited.
The second point I want to touch on is the NHS’s approach to identifying what steps services should take to ensure that all deaths by suicide across NHS-funded mental health settings are learned from to prevent repeat events. The NHS would be wise to learn from previous events, and it must ensure that the right investment is provided to help prevent people from taking their own lives. I know what it feels like to lose someone to suicide, including for the family.
The figures in the report also strike a note with me. It states:
“A quarter of people who took their own life had been in contact with a health professional, usually their GP, in the last week before they died.”
Indeed, when my cousin took his life, he was in contact with a GP and awaiting counselling. Even if we could save only one life, that would be one less family who would have to experience the heartbreak of losing a loved one. I am therefore pleased to hear that the recommendations outline a system in which more will be done to help GPs further understand the issues surrounding mental health. That will hopefully help to reduce the number of people who take their own life even having seen a healthcare professional in the weeks leading up to their death.
I was recently appointed to the position of rapporteur on mental health to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the first area I will be reporting on is self-inflicted deaths in custody among 18 to 24-year-olds. The taskforce report touches on the issue of mental health in prisons and in the time following release from prison. There is no denying that prison should be a punishment. However, the criminal justice system is a difficult place for people with mental health issues, and I welcome the proposals to improve mental health provision both for those currently serving a prison sentence and those who have recently been released. We need to ensure that we provide the appropriate support to help ease people back into society and help them forge a life away from crime.
Nine years ago today, my mum died at the age of 67, having fought all her life against mental health issues—she was in and out of several institutions—and it strikes me that we could have had her for another 12 years had some recommendations in the report been adhered to.
The NHS taskforce report covers many aspects of mental health, which is an issue that is impossible to address overnight. We need a strong, detailed and considered plan of action to be implemented over the coming years. The Government have highlighted mental health as a key priority, and I hope that by working with the NHS and the organisations and charities at the heart of mental health, we can produce an effective plan to improve mental health provision across the UK.
Oral Answers to Questions
Amanda Solloway Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
7. What progress the Government has made on integrating and improving care provided outside of hospitals.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
16. What progress the Government has made on integrating and improving care provided outside of hospitals.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman)
I join you, Mr Speaker, in offering the Government’s congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) on her extraordinary success.
Tackling the long neglected integration of health and social care is a major priority for this Government. It is crucial to avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions, providing better care outcomes for the elderly and easing the pressure on our health economy from an ageing population. That is why we have set up the better care fund, providing funding of £3.9 billion—£5.3 billion if we include local funding; why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced the social care precept, which will raise £2 billion; and why we have fully funded the NHS five year forward view integrated care pioneers and new models of care in 95 sites. That is more than Labour promised or ever did in its term of office.
George Freeman
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The disabled facilities grant is our primary mechanism for supporting the most vulnerable patients. It is currently £222 million, and I am delighted my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced it will increase to £500 million by 2019-20. That will fund 85,000 adaptations and help to prevent 8,500 unnecessary hospital admissions.
Amanda Solloway
A recent study carried out by the Care Quality Commission found that there had been no notable improvement in mental health services outside hospitals. What steps are being taken to rectify that?
George Freeman
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is right that the crisis resolution and home treatment teams were criticised in the recent CQC report for not providing adequate home treatment. That is why the Prime Minister announced in January that we are providing an extra £400 million in funding for those teams. It is also why, in the mandate, we recently required that NHS England not only agree but implement a plan to improve crisis treatment in all areas.
Oral Answers to Questions
Amanda Solloway Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Ben Gummer
The hon. Gentleman raises a reasonable point about attrition rates: they have remained too high for too long. One of the things we are undertaking at the moment is to talk intensively with universities to see how we can reduce attrition rates. We have had some success in some areas, but I want to see far more. It is important that students stay on their courses as much as possible. Of course, many go into community nursing. I would be prepared to write to the hon. Gentleman about further actions we are taking on attrition rates.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
14. What steps his Department is taking to involve young people in plans for improving children and young people’s mental health.
The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)
Clinical commissioning groups have produced local transformation plans to transform their local offer for children and young people’s mental health. Those plans were decided at local level in collaboration with children, young people and those who care for them. I remember my visit to Derby very well, and I am pleased to say that the NHS in that area has collaborated extremely well with young people to produce those plans.
Amanda Solloway
Last year the Derby youth council ran a consultation on the provision of mental health services in Derby, which highlighted the disparity of services among different trusts. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that NHS trusts across the UK offer the same level of support for those suffering from mental health issues?
Alistair Burt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have talked more than once at this Dispatch Box about the variation in performance on different issues around the country. Two or three things will help. On funding and resources, there is a better tracking system to make sure that money that goes into children and young persons’ mental health services will be spent appropriately. More money is going into that. Equally, a children and young persons’ mental health improvement team is working across the national health service to make sure that those variations are evened out so that good practice in the best areas becomes the practice of all.
Male Suicide and International Men’s Day
Amanda Solloway Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for securing this important debate, especially as it is on International Men’s Day. We should have a proper discussion about the issues and how they affect so many people in the UK. It is right to talk about male suicide rates and domestic abuse among boys and men. They are key issues that have a massive effect on our society. We simply cannot afford to ignore them.
I want to focus on male suicide. I have spoken many times about my personal experience of male suicide. The loss of my cousin, who tragically took his life at the age of 36, has had a profound effect on my family, giving us first-hand experience of the heartbreak that such an event can bring. The signs were there. He was trying to get help, but it just did not happen quickly enough. Sadly, his case is not unique.
In the UK, 13 men take their life each day. The male suicide rate across the world is at a 14-year high, and the use of antidepressants has increased five times since 1991. Having spoken to my right hon. Friend the Minister about these issues several times, I know how committed he is to the cause. We have made inroads towards helping people get the support they need, but I am sure all Members will agree that we need to do more.
Ending the stigma surrounding mental health issues has to be a priority for each gender, but society tells men that it is okay not to show their emotions, and we really need to change that to enable the male population at all ages to talk about their issues. We need to show that that is a strength and not a weakness. From the age of about nine or 10, boys are told to “man up”, be strong, and keep their feelings to themselves. They are told they can bottle things up, which they do, because they are scared of the banter. That is why suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50, and why 40% of men between the age of 18 and 45 have thought about suicide.
Organisations such as the Samaritans do great work to help people suffering from depression, but men need to feel they can contact them in the first place by first admitting that they have a problem. Of course, warning signs can and should be seen long before the thought of suicide arises. By the time young men consider suicide, the damage has often already been done. We need to tackle the issue in schools and colleges, at work and at home, and in sports clubs and pubs up and down the country. We need to speak directly to schools, children and parents. We need to be honest and say that it is okay for boys of any age to talk about their feelings, and we need to do it now. That is why this debate is so important today.
When society tells men not to talk about their issues, we should lead the way and tell them that it is all right to talk about them. I say this to colleagues: when you are down the pub tonight, ask a mate how he is doing—how he is really doing. When your son comes home from school and says he is fine, consider what that really means. If a friend is acting out of character, that could be an early warning sign of depression. This is serious. They might not tell you, but it will matter that you have asked. Tiny steps will make a difference. We know that we need to talk about this issue more, so I welcome this debate. The more we can talk about this and make sure that mental health is treated with the same importance as physical health, the better.
Issues such as male suicide rates and male domestic abuse are so important. I wanted to focus on male suicides, but we all have a responsibility to keep these issues high on the agenda, and we must work together to look out for our male population.