Tag: Luciana Berger

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 4 March 2016 to Question 29233, how much of the annual allocation of £130 million for carers’ breaks has been spent so far in 2015-16.

Alistair Burt

Every local area is required to set out in their Better Care Fund the plan for the level of resource that will be dedicated to carer-specific support, including how it has met its minimum contributions for funding towards carers’ breaks. Delivery against these plans is a matter for local determination.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many agency mental health nurses have been employed by each clinical commissioning group in each year since 2010.

Ben Gummer

This information is not collected centrally either by the Department or NHS England.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of attendees at the NHS England Mental Health Crisis Care Summit were mental health service users.

Alistair Burt

The second mental health Crisis Care Concordat national summit was held on 24 November 2015, hosted jointly by the Department and Mind.

The event concentrated on progress with improving crisis care since the launch of the Concordat in February 2014. The Summit was full, with 250 delegates and speakers. All delegates were Concordat activists – either involved in their local Crisis Concordat groups or representatives from national signatory and supporter organisations. People with lived experience and carers attended, as well as members of the National Survivor User Network. Some attendees will have been present representing their organisations but also will have had lived experience, and it is therefore not possible to calculate the number of those attendees who were mental health service users.

All Departmental conferences involve stakeholders and service users as part of the preparation process.