Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking, with NHS England and integrated care boards, to address systemic failings in inpatient mental health care.

Anyone receiving mental health treatment should be able to expect consistently safe, high‑quality care. Families, staff, and the public deserve answers when things go wrong in mental health settings and it is vitally important that, where care falls short, we learn from any mistakes made to improve care across the National Health Service and to protect patients in the future. To this end, the Department has announced a statutory inquiry into the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.

The Department and NHS England are committed to ensuring we put in place a modernised legislative framework through the Mental Health Act 2025 which upholds patient rights and voice and that provides stronger oversight, higher standards, and a system that better protects and supports some of the most vulnerable people in society, whilst keeping patients and the public safe. We are also prioritising eliminating inappropriate out of area placements. The Medium Term Planning Framework set a new national expectation to end all integrated care board-commissioned inappropriate out of area placements and the commissioning of locked rehabilitation services by March 2028.