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Mental Health Care

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:16 pm on 21 November 2011.

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Photo of Julian Lewis Julian Lewis Conservative, New Forest East 10:16, 21 November 2011

I am most grateful to the Minister. I want to put it on the record that since our last exchange on this subject on 10 November more data have come from the Hampshire trust, which intends to close more than one third of its acute in-patient beds, confirming that although only a minority of patients admitted to acute beds were detained patients, they stayed for longer, and that at any one time about half the beds, if not more, were occupied by detained patients. Does the Minister agree that if excessive numbers of beds are closed, the opportunity for a non-detained patient to find a bed will be disproportionately reduced?

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