Clause 24
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
12:45 pm
Angela Browning (Deputy Chairman (Organising and Campaigning), Conservative Party; Tiverton and Honiton, Conservative)
Well, surprise was a factor. Are the Minister’s reservations about the clause that there will not be sufficient and appropriate services ready out there? We have already dealt with the fact that once an Act receives Royal Assent different parts are implemented at different times. None the less, it is quite clear, and quite clear from the Government’s response to the scrutiny Committee on the question of children’s services, that the Government are only too well aware of what needs to be done. Clearly, some parts of the country have started to provide specialist services, either on a regional basis or by several counties clustering together.
There are also practical issues about access for visiting parents, which I raised with the PCT and the strategic health authority in our consultation in the west country. If children and adolescents have to travel further to access specialised services, then we must ensure that we build into the facility a place for parents and close relatives to stay overnight, rather like they do on children’s wards in general hospitals. If a child is admitted to a general hospital for any period of time, there are facilities for parents to stay. Mothers very often want to stay to help with the nursing of the child. There is no reason why that system cannot be replicated in our mental health hospitals. It is about treating children appropriately. I do not see why that problem cannot be overcome.
We may need to look at the cost of transport for some families. It is quite prohibitive when children are hospitalised a long way from home. I have a mother in my constituency whose child has been hospitalised in Bristol. He has been there for three months. To travel from Exeter to Bristol every day as she wants to, having other children at home, is quite expensive. Perhaps we should be looking at the practicalities of helping families with the cost of hospital transfer. Those are not insurmountable problems. When I look around the Committee, I am sure that you will agree with me, Mr. Cook, that the brains assembled here could come up with a solution to very practical problems like that. They are second-order issues compared with what is proposed—