Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how his Department (a) identified and (b) supported children of parents with mental illness.

Alistair Burt

We have changed the law to improve how young carers and their families including those of parents with mental illness are identified and supported. These new duties came into effect in April 2015. Changes introduced through the Children and Families Act 2014 consolidate and simplify the legislation relating to young carers’ assessments, make rights and duties clearer to both young people and practitioners, extend the right to an assessment of needs of all young carers regardless of who they care for or what type of care they provide and make it clear to local authorities that they must carry out an assessment of a young carer’s needs for support on request or on the appearance of need.

These new provisions work alongside those in the Care Act 2014 for assessing adults to enable ‘whole family approaches’ to assessment and support. This means that when a child is identified as a young carer, the needs of everyone in the family will be considered in the first place.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Report CR164 Parents as patients: Supporting the needs of patients who are parents and their children published in January 2011 and available at

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/usefulresources/publications/collegereports/cr/cr164.aspx

sets out the College’s position on how the needs of parents and children can be managed and dealt with sensitively in the case of parental mental illness.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of additional perinatal specialist mental health practitioners that will be needed to meet the additional requirements set out in the Prime Minister’s speech on life chances of 11 January 2016.

Ben Gummer

Health Education England (HEE) is working closely with NHS England to better understand the future workforce commissioning requirements needed to deliver access for all to the right perinatal mental health services.

The HEE Perinatal Mental Health programme aims to ensure that the maternity workforce has access to the right skills and knowledge that will enable them to provide high quality perinatal mental health care from prevention through to treatment for women throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. This includes partnership working with stakeholders to meet multi professional education and training requirements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2016 to Question 23676, when the work being undertaken by Health Education England and NHS England to which he refers will be completed.

Alistair Burt

The additional significant investment in perinatal mental health totaling £350 million from 2016/17- 2020/21, together with the recommendations of the forthcoming report of the independent Mental Health Taskforce, will enable NHS England to design a broader five year transformation programme to build capacity and capability in specialist perinatal mental health services, with the aim of enabling women in all areas of England to access care that is in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines by 2020/21.

Work is underway to lay the foundations for this longer-term work through targeted funding of activities to build capacity in specialist services. This will include, for example, a £1 million investment in strengthening clinical networks across the country. It is also expected to include developing clinical leadership capacity and training for the perinatal workforce to build the skills and capabilities within specialist teams.

NHS England will work with partners, including Health Education England, over the coming months, to develop the five year programme for improving specialist perinatal mental health services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to improve the support available to mental health professionals to manage their own mental health.

Alistair Burt

Regular clinical supervision with an experienced and trained supervisor has been shown to ameliorate the negative impact of therapeutic work on the health and well-being of therapeutic staff.

Guidance on the Principles of Supervision for an IAPT Service recognises the importance of clinical supervision in this regard and recommends one hour of clinical supervision with an experienced trained supervisor per week.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Care Quality of 9 February 2016, on party of esteem in the NHS constitution, Official Report, column 1430, if he will add the right to psychological therapies to the constitution.

Alistair Burt

The NHS Constitution right to drugs and treatments reflects the legal funding requirement that applies to interventions recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal guidance.

NICE has not been asked to undertake a technical appraisal of psychological therapies. If in the future, psychological therapies are recommended by NICE, and are consequently mandated for use in the National Health Service, we will consider consulting on including a right to psychological therapies within the Constitution.

Over the last spending review we invested over £400 million into the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme to ensure access to talking therapies for those who need them and this has contributed to achieving very real improvements in the lives of people with anxiety and depression.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when the NHS England plans to publish its consultation on the future of mental health support for veterans of the armed forces, referred to in the NHS England Mental Health Taskforce.

Alistair Burt

NHS England published its consultation on Developing the mental health services for veterans in England on 25 January 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for the policies of the Cabinet Office of the recommendations of the Mental Health Taskforce report, published in February 2016.

Alistair Burt

We welcome the recommendations for government in the report and will be considering how best to integrate them into our work programme. There will be an impact on policies across Government in this period and, more importantly, a positive impact on people using mental health services.

The Mental Health Five Year Forward View Taskforce Report proposes, and we accept, investing over £1 billion of additional funding by 2020/21 to reach one million more people. There are a number of recommendations in the report which will have an impact on crisis care services, accident and emergency departments, mothers suffering from mental health problems, suicide prevention, children and young people’s mental health services, access to psychological therapies and the physical health of people with mental health problems. The £1 billion announced with the Taskforce report is the total annual cost for all areas in 2020/21.

Announcements on the development of policies, including those with reference to implementing the Mental Health Taskforce will be made in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether it is his policy to accept and implement the (a) 25 recommendations made to NHS England and (b) 21 recommendations made to his Department by the Mental Health Taskforce in its report published in February 2016.

Alistair Burt

We welcome the publication of the independent Mental Health Taskforce report and accept its recommendations for the National Health Service and the Department. We will work with other Government Departments, NHS England and other health arm’s length bodies to work to embed the recommendations into our work programmes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2016 to Question 28900, on mental health services, if he will make it his policy to collect that information.

Alistair Burt

In January, the Secretary of State for Education and Secretary of State for Health announced the Government’s intention to establish a new regulatory body for social work to drive up standards with an ambition to raise the quality of social work, education, training and practice in both children’s and adult’s social work.

As part of this work, we are exploring the feasibility of establishing a national register for Approved Mental Health Professionals.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2016 to Question 23475, on what date in March 2016 he expects the first report on progress against the referral to treatment element of the Early Intervention Psychosis access standard to be published.

Alistair Burt

The Health and Social Care Information Centre Monthly Statistics – Provisional January 2016, which includes experimental statistics relating to the Early Intervention for Psychosis access standard, is scheduled to be published on 31 March 2016.