Clause 24
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)
I am deeply impressed and moved by the eloquence of my hon. Friend. The debate has gone on for some time and I do not intend to prolong it, but as someone who normally tries to seek a degree of accommodation and consensus—and may even be criticised for that from time to time—I am encouraged that matters seem at least to be working towards a common position, even if one has not yet been reached. That is true with respect to the central importance of doing something for children’s mental health services, and even with respect to the Minister’s assurance, from which we take some comfort, that, as she snatches away the provision before the Committee, she has made a commitment—although not a precise one in legislative terms—to reflect again before Report. I have a profound hope that she will do that, and come up with something practical to meet the needs that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, including the hon. Member for Stafford, have described. We need to move on the issue.
Not only have Committee members received representations from YoungMinds and others but they will almost all have been involved in constituency cases. I have not had much experience of the kind, but an example that occurred this year has been very much on my mind. It brings together three points. The first is the importance of education as well as the health services in the support required for what the clauses define as the needs of young people. The young person in question is doing his GCSEs this year. He has suffered severe and acute depression, and difficulties have been encountered about where to accommodate him, including the question of putting him in adult mental health wards. There has been a fight for better provision, which has now been secured, but it has not been easy. A consequence has been the breaking of the link with his county, which has supported him for education purposes, because he has now crossed the boundary into another county.
The second point to make in that context, which has not been brought up so far, but which I think is a subset of the point already discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, is the remote provision of services. They may not be available readily and reliably in each of our local authority areas. That is not unusual in my constituency because of the geography, but people are going outside their area for services and having to deal with different local authorities and primary care trusts. That becomes difficult and stressful at a stressful time.
My third point has not really been made except in the context of carers, and that is the stress that such situations bring on the whole family: the parents and of course the siblings. There was a sibling in the case that I have recalled. Those people see the illness of their close relative and the desperate fight to get appropriate provision at a reasonably convenient point.