Chris Loder
Main Page: Chris Loder (Conservative - West Dorset)Mental Health Provision (Children and Young People) Bill
Chris Loder Excerpts
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
Thank you for calling me in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to contribute to this very important discussion. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson). It is important that she has brought her Bill to the House for us to debate, and I am pleased that we can have that discussion.
It is fair to say that some of the most profound experiences that I have had since I was elected in December 2019 are those of helping parents who have had terribly sick children, generally for mental health purposes. It has been so profound to see the extent to which young children who are five, six, seven or eight years old have been in such a desperate place and have had to wait quite some time to get help. I therefore have great sympathy with the hon. Lady’s wanting to bring the Bill to the House for debate.
The Bill very much focuses on the need for more reporting, with the Government to report still further to this House on child mental health statistics. I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with her on that point, and I would like to take the opportunity to explain why. I hope she will not misunderstand me, because I care deeply about this. In Dorset, we have also seen some terrible circumstances. Systemic issues are the core reason why these children have not got the help they have needed; they have fallen down the gaps in provision between the local authority, the education authority and the NHS.
The Government have introduced the extensive Health and Care Bill. I recognise that it does not enjoy the support of the whole House; indeed, I think I am right in saying that the hon. Lady has not supported the Bill so far. However, I think the Government’s intention to change the CCG setup and move towards an integrated care system for all parts of the country, and the steps that they have already taken on that in anticipation of the Health and Care Bill, are the single most important thing that will improve children’s mental health. It is one of the reasons why I am such a keen supporter of my hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues.
We have to take great care before we put more bureaucracy and cost into the system. It is already far too heavy with bureaucracy, which distracts from core delivery. I looked carefully at the notes that the hon. Lady sent me a few days ago—I thank her very much for doing so—and I have read her Bill. We have to be careful not to change the priorities to finances and money, rather than looking after the individual child. I agree that considerable improvement is needed when it comes to holding to account the relevant organisations in the three groups that I have just mentioned. I have found that quite difficult when I have supported parents who have come to me in desperation for help. She is right to highlight that point, and it is right that the Government hear it. I am sure that it is already well heard, although I am hoping that the Bill may be further strengthened to address it.
In a vast number of cases, young children have had to wait not days, weeks or months but in excess of a year to get the help they need. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the challenges with CAMHS, and the difficulties that parents often face with getting the assistance that they require.
Munira Wilson
If the hon. Member is so concerned about those year-long waits—we all have constituents who have experienced them—why is he so opposed to better reporting on that? He complains about bureaucracy, but some level of reporting is required for accountability. It is not just bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake, which I hate.
Chris Loder
The hon. Lady makes a valid challenge, but she misunderstands me. I am not necessarily wholly opposed to changes in reporting and changes in how local integrated care systems approach the matter, but I am not sure it is right or good for the UK Parliament to legislate in that level of detail. I repeat that I fear we run the risk of losing focus on the child or children amid all the bureaucracy of the reporting. That is a concern; I see that today to an extent. I do not want us to always resort to having to wait for annual reports to come out before we can bring up such matters with Ministers and others.
Peter Gibson
I am sure that my hon. Friend engages regularly, as I do, with his local mental health trust and local authority to raise and discuss these issues. Does he agree that it is an entirely appropriate step for a Member of Parliament to take to hold health authorities to account to ensure that the problem of the backlog is delivered on and addressed?
Chris Loder
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is difficult; I sympathise with many of the points of the hon. Member for Twickenham, but in my opinion, we can do that better through some of the considerable reforms that the Government have proposed in their new Bill. As I articulated earlier, with the three components—the education authority, the NHS and the local government authority—it is difficult for us as Members of Parliament to get to the nub of the issue, because we are often pushed to somebody or somewhere else. The parents of the families concerned also feel that. It is absolutely right, therefore, that we look to focus much more on the system and its outcomes and on ensuring that our children, especially those in the greatest need, are much better looked after than they are today.
Simon Baynes
To go back to my hon. Friend’s comment about bureaucracy, apart from reporting, are there any other aspects of bureaucracy that he feels currently mean that we cannot give the level of service that we would like to young people in mental health services?
Chris Loder
From my perspective—I am not an expert in the field—there is a level of bureaucracy that prevents us from getting to the nub of the issue to fix it, which is part of the reason why the Government’s reforms are coming forward, as far as I understand it. The Minister may add to that in due course. My hon. Friend would probably do well to ask an hon. Member who comes from a health profession or who is a practising doctor for some better-informed insight into that area than I can offer based on my relatively brief experience since my election.
This debate also gives us the opportunity to highlight some of the difficulties in the NHS in terms of the provision of services. For example, in Dorset, there have been several situations where those in need of care have been unable to access it because The Retreat centre in Dorchester has been closed because of a workforce difficulty.
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making some excellent points. When we talk about the delivery of services to young people, something that has struck me from my experience in my constituency is how they sometimes expect services to be delivered in a different way from us. They expect more digital services and they do not always want to sit in a dusty old waiting room for hours as we have perhaps been used to. Part of the challenge that we face is to look at children and young people specifically and at the different ways that they might want to experience the services that the NHS delivers.
Chris Loder
I thank my hon. Friend for her kind intervention, and I could not agree with her more. She is absolutely right, and her point highlights the difficulties that those of us who represent rural constituencies face when we cannot get on the internet because of a lack of broadband. I am conscious that we are going off on a little bit of a tangent, but NHS services and the other services for children that she outlines are hugely dependent on that.
I was making a point, before the intervention, about the provision of services for young children in Dorset, and I referred to The Retreat, a mental health facility in Dorchester. I also thank and pay tribute to those at St Ann’s Hospital in Poole who look after many children who have great difficulties.
I will bring my remarks to a close by saying that the hon. Member for Twickenham has brought a very important debate to the Floor of the House. While I do not agree with her on all of her points, I thank her for her tireless campaigning. Even if we do not agree about all the Bill’s components, by bringing the Bill to the House of Commons she has enabled us to have a debate that has caused a great deal of interest, as we can tell by the number of interventions that those of us who have spoken have taken. It is an important issue, and I am delighted that the Ministers are on the Front Bench to hear the debate. Having discussed the subject with the Minister, I know she understands fully the difficulties that we face, and I look forward to seeing if there are learning points that the Government can take from the debate to further improve the Bill.