Young People’s Mental Health — House of Commons, 2016-10-27
Topic: Health
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and thank her for it. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for the House to discuss this issue. May I also put on record my thanks to the British Youth Council, the UK Youth Parliament and the Youth Select Committee for this excellent report? May I also give them another big thank you for allowing us again to talk about mental health on the Floor of the House? People perhaps get a bit sick of me saying this, but I say it again: the way to address some of the stigma is by talking about this more. Talking about this report as we have done today will mean that young people know we are taking this subject seriously As I said in an intervention, the report raises issues that cross over into those relating to adult mental health services. As the hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) said, the unique thing about the report is that it gives those of us more advanced in years an insight into pressures on young people today that were not there when we were younger and into the challenges for parents and schools in dealing with them. The core of the report is very important, because it deals with a lot of issues that also affect adult mental health services I wish to concentrate on two aspects of the report: how young people get access to mental health services; and the vital issue of prevention and being able to address not just mental health, but mental health well-being. As has been said, how people access these services is important. The report talks about mental health services to young people being: "The Cinderella of Cinderella services" Is this about money? Yes, it is, in some cases. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) eloquently mentioned that we can have all the aspirations in the world, but if the funding is not there locally to provide services, the services will not be there and people will not access them. I agree with the report that this is therefore about more cash, but it is also about how we structure our mental health services in this country Page 5 of the report sums it up well. It contains a diagram of a pyramid showing a list of organisations that commission mental health services—schools, local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and NHS England—and calls for a lead commissioner. I totally agree with that, but I would go one step further. When we talk about commissioning services, we need to talk about the treatment pathways and how people get into those systems. Adults trying to navigate the mental health system find that it is like a maze. Not only do they have to find their way through it, but when they get into it they on many occasions find that, as my hon. Friend said, they can wait weeks, months or years to get help—this help is available in some areas but it should be provided more quickly. Early intervention, especially for young people, can prevent problems further down the line I sympathise with parents today, because how do they know who to go to if their child has mental health problems? What do they need to ask for? We assume that, somehow, people are well versed not only in issues around mental health, but in how to access help—that is also true for families of adult sufferers. We do need that pathway The report quite rightly highlights the issue around GPs and GP training, but, as I have said many times, therein lies the problem. I am not criticising GPs, because there are some very good ones who do help, who are sympathetic and who can access services. I support the recommendation in the report for more training for GPs, but we need a more open system—a system of self-referral—which does not necessarily mean going through a GP That brings us to the issue around commissioning and how we provide mental health services in this country. Mental health services very much follow the medical model, but I am not sure whether that needs to be the case. What we need in this country is an open system, which involves the community and voluntary sector. I am suggesting this not because it is a cheap option, but because it is perhaps a better way of providing mental health services. However, those voluntary groups need to be funded, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said. It is no good saying that we are going to pass this work over to some very good voluntary sector organisations and expect them to do it without the funding. Therein lies the problem. I give credit to the former Minister, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who was a great champion of parity of esteem and of concentrating on how to make the system better. As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), it is no good just looking at mental health in terms of the Department of Health, because the cuts that have taken place in local government are having a direct impact on the provision of mental health services—I am talking about the closure of youth services and voluntary sector organisations that provide mental health services locally. This is a false economy. If we are putting more money into health and taking it out from elsewhere in the system, we will create an ongoing problem We also need a fundamental review of CAMHS, as it is a complete failure. I am not for one minute criticising the dedicated individuals who work in that service, because I have met them and know that they work very hard. Given their workload and the way that they get their referrals, they are doing a fantastic job, but the system is broken. We cannot have this situation in which young people are waiting possibly six months for an assessment, and in which families and the individual young person are somehow expected to cope.