Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Attorney General, what account the CPS takes of mental health conditions when deciding whether to prosecute people under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

Robert Buckland

The Crown Prosecution Service is committed to taking into account the mental health condition of an offender when considering bringing a prosecution. Each case is considered on its merits, taking into account all available information about any mental health issues, and their relevance to the offence, in accordance with the principles set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors (the Code).

The Code explains that there is a balance to be struck between the public interest in diverting a defendant with significant mental illness from the criminal justice system and other public interest factors in favour of prosecution, including the need to safeguard the public.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the progress of the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme’s service transformation programme.

Alistair Burt

The Government’s transformation programme for children and young people’s mental health is aimed at improving children and young people’s mental health and providing additional support for those who experience mental health problems. The Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP IAPT) programme includes training for professionals working in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) partnerships to put the patient at the centre of their treatment: young people agree goals and milestones with the professional, and participate in their care through regular feedback and outcome monitoring. The benefits of this approach are well-evidenced.

Unlike the adult programme, CYP IAPT does not create new services; it transforms CAMHS partnerships by training people to deliver evidence-based interventions so that those working in CAMHS do so in collaboration with children, young people and families, in every aspect of care and service design through better participation and regular feedback and outcome monitoring.

At present, 78% of young people aged under 19 are covered by CAMHS partnerships which are working to transform services by embedding the CYP IAPT principles, and the programme is being rolled out to cover the whole of England by 2018. The programme is currently developing a number of new curricula to address training gaps that have been identified during its implementation. These include interventions for 0-5 year olds, evidence-based counselling, combination therapy (pharmacology and psychological interventions), Learning Disabilities and Autistic Spectrum disorder, and staff working in inpatient settings.

A recent rapid deep dive audit of 12 partnerships within the programme showed:

― improved access through self-referral routes, single point of access, outreach services, evening and weekend appointments;

― compared to a national sample of mental health services in the United States, teams in services working with CYP IAPT had more proficient organisational cultures and more functional organisations;

― more efficient time between referral and assessment decreased by 73%;

― number of days between assessment and discharge decreased by 21%; and

― The percentage of closed cases by mutual agreement increased by 22%.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of clinical commissioning groups that commission mental health services specifically for older adults.

Alistair Burt

No estimate has been made of the number and proportion of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) that commission mental health services specifically for older adults. All CCGs will have a cohort of older adults for whom there is mental health services provision. In recent years there has been a trend towards ageless mental health services.

However, one of the recommendations in the Mental Health Taskforce report The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health published by NHS England in February this year is that bespoke older adult services should be the preferred model until such time that general adult mental health services can be shown to provide age-appropriate care.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the recommendations in the Royal College of Nursing’s report, Connect for Change: an update on learning disability services in England, published in February 2016; and if he will make a statement.

Ben Gummer

Health Education England (HEE) is working with NHS England and other national partners to set out a far-reaching plan to transform services for people with a learning disability, to make significant and lasting improvements to their care and lives. This work is currently focused on supporting the transforming care programme and spreading the lessons learnt from engagement with fast-track sites.

HEE is predicting an increase of between an additional 1,126 and 1,778 whole time equivalent (WTE), learning disability nurses by 2020 being available to the National Health Service. The range between these figures is the uncertainty over employer’s ability to retain the current workforce. Both of these figures are in addition to the baseline 3,904 WTEs working in the NHS, resulting in a forecast supply of between 5,030 and 5,682 WTEs by 2020. This is in excess of the forecasts made by NHS employers as to the number they believe they will need and therefore could meet demand from other sectors.

The Department commissioned Skills for Health, Skills for Care and HEE to develop a Learning Disabilities Core Skills Education and Training Framework, which will be launched in May and is aimed at all health and social care workers who have not received training in learning disabilities, especially those nurses from other fields of nursing such as adult, children and mental health nurses.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has undertaken a gender impact assessment of its mental health strategies.

Alistair Burt

This Department undertakes impact assessment analysis when developing and implementing policies. Part of this assessment is the analysis of equalities issues, including gender.

For example, mental health strategy No health without mental health A cross-government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages was published in February 2011 and was accompanied by an analysis of the impact on equality.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to implement recommendation 8 in the executive summary of Public Health England’s March 2015 report entitled, Public mental health leadership and workforce development framework, on working with relevant colleges, faculties and boards overseeing professional training to include mental health within public health curricula.

Jane Ellison

Public Health England (PHE) has worked with the Faculty of Public Health (FPH), Royal Society for Public Health and Royal College of Psychiatrists in developing and implementing the public mental health leadership and workforce development framework. More recently the Royal College of Nursing, Chartered Institute for Environmental Health (CIEH), Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) and Institute for Health Visitors have endorsed the framework and signed up to its Call to Action. Mental health has been made a presidential priority for the FPH, CIEH and ADPH. PHE has provided information and guidance to inform the recent FPH curricula review, the Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework review and the new Mental Health Skills and Knowledge Framework. PHE has also presented the framework to the United Kingdom People in Public Health Board, Skills for Care Mental Health Board, Health Education England Mental Health Advisory Board and the forthcoming Health Education England Public Health Advisory Board.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has a team with specific responsibility for addressing women’s mental health.

Alistair Burt

The Department’s mental health policy teams provide strategic policy advice on mental health for people of all ages and genders. When issues are specific to a gender these are addressed within the policy development.

The Coalition Government published a national mental health strategy No Health Without Mental Health in 2012 which addressed mental health issues for the whole population, and introduced the concept of parity of esteem for mental health. This Government continues to hold NHS England to account through the NHS Mandate for the achievement of measurable progress towards the parity of esteem for mental health.

The Government announced almost £1 billion of additional investment for mental health in January 2016 including £290 million of new investment over the next five years to provide mental healthcare for new mothers. The Mental Health Taskforce Report published in February 2016 set out a recommendation for NHS England to ensure that by 2020/21 at least 30,000 more women each year access evidence-based specialist mental health care during the perinatal period. The recommendation stated this should include access to psychological therapies and the right range of specialist community or inpatient care so that comprehensive, high-quality services are in place across England.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department’s target was for the number of qualified mental health trust inspectors in each year since 2010; and how many such inspectors were employed by the Care Quality Commission in each of those years.

Ben Gummer

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England and is responsible for identifying its own staffing requirements and recruiting suitably qualified people. The Department has not set the CQC targets for the recruitment of inspectors. The CQC has provided the following information.

The term ‘qualified mental health inspector’ is not one that is used by the CQC. Part of the person specification used in the recruitment of new inspectors for mental health services is that applicants have a background in mental health, learning disability, or substance misuse.

The CQC is only able to provide figures from April 2014 onwards. Prior to this, the CQC inspectors were not organised into specialist teams and were simply classified as “inspectors”. The CQC planned to recruit 149 inspectors by April 2016.

Number of full time equivalent mental health inspectors employed by the CQC

1 April 2014	29.5
1 April 2015	70.6
1 April 2016	126.5

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with severe and enduring mental health problems are (a) eligible for and (b) receiving social care.

Alistair Burt

Health and Social Care Information Centre’s Short and Long Term Support data shows that the number of people accessing long term adult social care support during the year to 31 March 2015 with the primary support reason of “Mental Health Support” was 110,000.

A further 6,000 new clients with the primary support reason of “Mental Health Support” received short term adult social care support to maximise independence.

The data shows the number of people local authorities have considered as eligible for social care support.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to define a target for the number of out-of-area placements for non-specialist mental health care.

Alistair Burt

In April 2016, the Government announced a national ambition to eliminate inappropriate out of area treatments for adult acute inpatient care as a result of local acute bed pressures by 2020/21 at the latest. We expect areas to put in place local action plans and achieve year on year reductions from 2016/17.