Mental Health Services (Norfolk and Suffolk) — House of Commons, 2018-05-02
Topic: Health
Daniel Leonard James Poulter (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker for granting this debate on mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk and the challenges they face Quite rightly, the Government have talked a lot over the last few years about parity of esteem between mental and physical health and about the need to invest more in mental health services. Indeed, there has been limited extra investment in Norfolk and Suffolk. None the less, the NHS trust has faced challenges that are affecting the quality of patient care. Tonight is a good opportunity to bring before the House some of those issues and, hopefully, to offer some solutions and appeal to the Government to do more to help the trust in very difficult times, because ultimately it is the patients who suffer when trusts are in difficult circumstances First, I would like to pay tribute to Gary Page, who is the chair of the Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust. Despite very challenging circumstances, difficult Care Quality Commission reports and the financial pressures that have faced services in Norfolk and Suffolk for many years, he has worked hard to make sure that there has been continuity. It is thanks to his leadership that the trust is now able to move forward and address some of the challenges that it faces with the quality of care I want to talk briefly about some of the issues involved, focusing mainly on ward closures and the points raised in the CQC report. I want to outline to the House some of the fundamental issues with staff shortages, which are probably the worst in almost any mental health trust in the country. I want to talk a little further about the finances of the trust, and I also want to talk about some of the difficulties there have been in how the trust works with addiction services and how that is counterproductive to the effective care and treatment of patients Although my medical work is not currently in the east of England, I want to draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a practising NHS doctor working in mental health services, which of course gives me some insight into the challenges faced by the trust, although I do not think that interest is particularly applicable in this case, because my medical work is not done in the region The quality of care challenges facing the trust are quite extensive. As the Minister will be aware, the trust was put into special measures in October 2017. There are significant pressures on beds within local services, resulting in higher numbers of out-of-area placements for patients. Many patients are now having to be transported out of area to be treated because of the closure of beds, which is not good medical practice. It is not good for patients either, because they will be a long way away from their support networks, and it interferes with the effective post-hospital care and rehabilitation that is so important in co-ordinating with community services The challenges appear to centre on patient flow into beds and delays to discharge. We know that there is a historical lack of community mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk, and investment has not been available to increase them at the necessary speed and rate. There are challenges with housing providers in the area not necessarily working closely enough with the trust, and there are also the pressures on social services that we know too well exist across the country. Those pressures are very relevant in Norfolk and Suffolk, where we have a lot of older patients with dementia who are struggling to be discharged effectively into the community because of delays in receiving adequate social services. A lot of the blame for that has been attributed to the mental health trust, but many factors are beyond its control The trust also faces significant challenges with the quality of its buildings infrastructure. Many of its buildings are old and not fit for purpose. The capital budget has not been available to improve the buildings, although there has been some new building work. I will come on to that in a moment.