Across the 9 days leading up to polling day Dorset Eye will publish the answers to the questions set by local people for some of the local candidates standing in the 2015 General Election. Some candidates have yet to reply and should we receive their responses then they will be included in later interviews.
1. How will you help those suffering from the stigma and experiences of mental health?
2. More and more people are being diagnosed with mental health illnesses. How will you make the NHS more useful for these people?
3. How will candidates ensure that those with Mental Health Needs and disabilities are supported with dignity and respect when attending Job Centre Plus and ensuring that the DWP have in place policies in dealing with those who have a Hidden Disability?
Simon Bowkett: Labour Party Dorset South
With one-in-six of us affected by a mental health problem at any one time, and with the costs of poor mental health to the economy put at over £100bn, it is vitally important to look at how we can improve the mental health and wellbeing of our nation.
We need a wider shift in attitudes and behaviour towards mental health, so no-one feels ashamed or unable to speak out.
Getting there will be a challenge, and will require a contribution from everyone – public services, businesses, charities and citizens themselves. But rising to the challenge is essential to building a fairer, more prosperous country where everyone can play their part.
The Labour Party is committed to a radical improvement in mental health provision with more emphasis on prevention, early intervention and better support – particularly for young people – as part of Labour’s plan to sustain and improve the NHS.
The scandal of failure and false economies in this neglected area is costing billions of pounds a year as well as increasing pressure on the NHS and hospital services.
Half of all hospital in-patients have a mental health condition, rising numbers of young people are needing serious mental health support, and unaddressed mental health problems are costing the NHS billions each year in terms of worse physical health.
Labour’s 10-year plan for the NHS will contain key measures to integrate mental and physical health provision with social care to ensure problems get identified and addressed as early as possible.
These include ensuring that the training of all NHS staff includes mental health so problems get spotted. At the same time people with complex physical and mental health conditions will be given a single point of contact for all of their care.
Labour has also pledged more action on child mental health, which is among our priority areas, and we have a renewed commitment to early intervention to guide the work of the next Labour government in this area.
Just 6 per cent of the mental health budget is spent on children, even though three quarters of adult mental illness begins before the age of 18.
The Government’s false economies in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in this Parliament have led to a growing number of young people being placed in adult wards, and many sent hundreds of miles for hospital care as a result of bed shortages.
Labour will work to reverse the damage suffered by child mental health services under this Government. And we will set an ambition that, over time, the proportion of the mental health budget spent on children will rise as we make smart investments to improve mental health in childhood, in the process lessening some of the demand on mental health services when young people turn into adults.
Teachers should have training in child mental health so they are equipped to identify, support and refer children with mental health problems. Good child mental health is critical for academic attainment and future employment prospects: children with emotional problems are twice as likely to struggle with reading, spelling and maths.
We are concerned that prevention and early intervention services have been stripped back in recent years, including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Early Intervention in Psychosis Services and the Early Intervention Grant which funds Sure Start services.
As a result, we want to see:
· An expansion of talking therapies, working towards a 28-day waiting-time standard for access to both adult and young people’s talking therapies.
· A 28-day standard, with 80 per cent seen within 28 days, would ensure more people get quicker access to treatment. While the current average wait for adults to access talking therapies is five weeks, in some Clinical Commissioning Groups average waits are up to three months. Investment in evidence-based talking therapies saves money on the costs of failure: according to the government figures, it saves £1.75 to the Exchequer for every £1 invested, through reduced physical healthcare costs and reduced welfare costs.
· Greater use of social prescribing to link those who are isolated or lonely up with social activities and support
· Ensuring providers of government employment programmes have specialist knowledge of mental health and can offer access to evidence-based programmes
· Continuing the Time to Change campaign – which aims to improve attitudes towards mental health – through the next Parliament.
The next Labour government will begin work on a timetable and strategy for these recommendations and delivering the savings they might bring, in consultation with health professionals.
We will only ensure the NHS can survive the very real funding pressures it faces if we stop making false economies by stripping back preventative services and start making smart investments in early intervention and support. Without decisive action to tackle problems before they become too serious, the NHS will be overwhelmed as it struggles to pick up the pieces.
Labour recognises the huge contribution disabled people make to our country every day in schools, businesses, families and boardrooms.
Yet too many disabled people continue to be denied the opportunities enjoyed by everyone else.
All too often whether it’s as a result of hate crime or discrimination in the job market millions of disabled people are denied a fair chance to live independent and successful lives.
David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith have made matters worse, not better for those living with disability or long-term illness.
In preparation for this election, I am proud that Labour has worked closely with disabled people to identify the issues that most affect their lives, and develop the policies we need to address them.
Labour has a better plan for disabled people.
We will:
· Ensure young disabled people have the same chances as non-disabled people to study for the vocational or degree qualifications that lead to decent jobs.
· Give mental health the same priority as physical health, ensuring that all NHS staff have mental health training.
· Integrate health and social care, and offer disabled people an entitlement to a personal care plan, the option of personal budgets where appropriate, and a single named person to coordinate care.
· Overhaul the Work Capability Assessment and ensure that sick and disabled people are involved in reviewing its effectiveness.
· Introduce a specialist Work Support programme to provide tailored support to disabled people who want to work.
· Abolish the Bedroom Tax.
· Toughen up the law on disability hate crime.
· Ensure disabled people have a voice at the heart of government, inviting disabled people to sit on the cross-government committee that develops disability policy.
Jane Burnet: Green Party Dorset South
The Green Party agrees with the aim of the mental health concordat in joining up services so that no-one with mental illness falls through the current cracks in provision. We would work to make sure that everyone experiencing a mental health crisis can quickly access good quality care, when and where they need it.
We would in addition ensure that spending on mental health care rises within our overall commitment to increasing real spending on health, putting an end to the Cinderella status of mental health services in the UK and cutting waiting times for assessment and treatment.
We would also implement a campaign to end the discrimination and stigma associated with mental illness.
One of the main problems facing patients with poor mental health is that all mental health issues a have been seen as somehow less urgent than physical health problems. The local Concordat, signed by those agencies that are most often involved with mental health patients, is a step towards reversing this trend. This understanding of mental health is changing across the political parties but it is how parties respond to this new understanding that is key to ensuring mental health patients get the care they need, where and when they need it.
One of the biggest problems is the marketisation of health provision, whereby different foundation trusts compete to provide a particular service. Each procedure is given a ‘tariff’ indicating how much its provision will bring to the foundation trust that wins the tendering process. Due to the nature of mental health problems, putting a tariff on treatment is difficult and it is not seen as a money maker for the trusts which have to compete with each other for ‘business’ and therefore funding.
So, mental health provision has been dreadfully neglected with appalling consequences for sufferers and their families, both here in South Dorset and right across the country. I expect you are aware that there are no secure mental health beds for women in the whole county of Dorset and women are forced away from their families to be treated in places as far away as Yorkshire. Similarly there are few beds for young sufferers who also have to travel right across the county for treatment.
The Green Party is the only party that rejects the policy of competition and ‘tendering’ in the health service. Hospital trusts should be collaborating and overseen by regional authorities. We reject the idea that there is a place for private, profit making providers. Returning the NHS to a publicly run service, as it was intended, would do much to ensure mental health provision was available locally and not a lottery. With a greater understanding that now exists AND a publicly run service, the prospects for mental health patients could be worthy of the wealthy nation that we are.
I would, of course, do all I could to make mental health part of my campaign if elected, but the only way to send a message that you believe the NHS should be returned being wholly publicly run, is to vote Green this May.
Vikki Slade: Liberal Democrats Mid Dorset and North Poole
I have personal experience of mental health conditions and have come into contact with a range of local services. It has been one of my passions to break the stigma of mental health and I am delighted that the Liberal Democrats are the only party to take this seriously and put it at the forefront of our General Election campaign. I am already a member of the Time to Change Dorset group, have supported Mosaic – a local charity working with bereaved youngsters – and have been campaigning for Curriculum for Life which ensures that young people have the skills for the modern world. I have pledged to support CAMHS and ensure that safe and healthy relationships are promoted in schools and colleges and have lobbied the Health and Care Minister, Norman Lamb over the state of our Psychiatric Intensive Care in Dorset and our Police and Crime Commissioner over the outlawing of the use of police cells as a “safe space”.
2.3 million people are not working due to mental health conditions and it is the biggest reason for claiming health related benefits. This is a particular problem for young people, as 75% of adults with mental health conditions first had a problem before the age of 18. The Liberal Democrats are committed to giving parity to mental health, investing in talking therapies, CAMHS and those with an incidence of psychosis. We will also ensure that all A&E departments have access to crisis care at the point of admittance.
More training is needed for staff at DWP so that they are not targeted for getting people off the list, but for gaining their clients meaningful long term employment or training. we would see their targets shifted to 13 week or 26 week outcomes. All staff should be treating their clients with dignity and respect and not making judgements about someone’s health and wellbeing. I would like to see the assessments for PIP and other health related benefits take a professional report into account and not be based solely on the assessors view at the time of the visit, as for some illnesses including MS, mental health conditions and fybromyalgia the results of the tests may be different on different occasions.
Simon Hoare: Conservative Party North Dorset
Mental Health care has to stop being the Cinderella service of the NHS and receive the same urgency and parity of prioritising as physical health. The Government has recently allocated a record sum to help with Mental Health issues. We need better coordination between the NHS and the Police in how to deal, short term, with young people demonstrating mental health problems. We must end the use of police cells as ‘holding wards’. Conservatives will do so.
We must be vigilant to ensure that people working in Job Centre Plus are adequately skilled and trained. Likewise we must ensure DWP keep under constant review the range and type of disabilities people are suffering with and respond accordingly.
Ros Kayes: Liberal Democrats West Dorset
The Lib Dems in government have insisted that mental health can be treated as seriously as all other types of health care. Until that happens the stigma associated with mental health issues will continue. In the last 6 months I’ve helped to save one mental health drop in centre (Zest Cafe in Sherborne) from closure, and found the funding and secure a premises for the Harmony Mental Health Drop in centre in Bridport. These centers serve as lifelines for people experiencing long term mental health conditions. I care so deeply about this because I’ve worked in mental health for 20 years now and work with all age groups , specialising in anxiety, depression, self harm, treating people who have been abused and working with 13-18 year olds as well as adults. 1 in 4 people suffer form mental illness at some time in their lives. The Lib Dems new mental health action plan sets out our priorities for essential change in mental health, including:
- Crisis Care Concordat: Making sure no one experiencing mental health crisis is ever turned away from services.
- Choice in Mental Health: Giving people the same choice for their mental healthcare as they do for their physical health.
- Liaison and Diversion: Committed £25m for a scheme that identifies health issues offenders when they enter the criminal justice system.
- Restraint: Investing £1.2m in staff training in order to reduce harmful restrictive practices.
- IAPT: Investing over £400m to give thousands of people access to evidence-based psychological therapies.
- Children’s mental health: Investing £54m in order to improve access to mental health care for children.
- Time to Change: Funding the Time to Change campaign, which challenges mental health stigma and discrimination.
• Act to improve the mental health of children and young people – promoting wellbeing throughout schools and ensuring that children and young people can access the services they need as soon as a mental health problem develops.
• Deliver genuine parity of esteem between mental and physical health, including by improving access and waiting time standards for mental health services and establishing a world-leading mental health research fund to improve understanding of mental illness and treatments.
It’s imperative that staff are properly trained to deal with those with mental health and other conditions. Too often I pick up casework from people with difficult to assess physical disabilities like Fibromyalgia or ME, who are having to go to appeal before they can get taken out of the ‘work group’. One gentleman I helped recently had severely restricted visual capacity due to long term diabetes, but was expected to apply for jobs that he would not have even been able to do as a volunteer due to health and safety restrictions. This is simply wrong. I want to ensure a named member of staff for people with health problems at each JCP and Lib Dems believe that GP and professional mental health worker assessments should be taken into account in PIP and WORK Capability Assessments. In this way, objective , medically evidenced assessments of capability can be ensured.
Peter Barton: Green Party West Dorset
Mental health has been neglected for far too long and is one of the major crises of our time. Currently, people with problems of mental health make up 28% of those requiring health care and yet mental health receives only 13% of NHS funding. Locally, those requiring treatment as residents in a secure hospital have to travel as far away as Kent.
The Green Party manifesto includes increasing overall NHS spending to over £12 billion p.a. and within this would be a large increase in funding for mental health. We will ensure that anyone experiencing a mental health crisis has safe and speedy access to quality care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We will implement a campaign to end the discrimination and stigma associated with mental health through supporting the ‘Time for Change’ programme and offering employment support to those with mental health problems. We will pay special attention to any mental health issues of mothers during and after pregnancy, children and adolescents, members of Black and Minority Ethnic groups, refugees, the LGBTIQ communities and ex-service people and their families.
As I stated in above, we will make a large increase in funding for mental health and we will ensure that anyone experiencing a mental health crisis has safe and speedy access to quality care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We will pay special attention to any mental health issues of mothers during and after pregnancy, children and adolescents, members of Black and Minority Ethnic groups, refugees, the LGBTIQ communities and ex-service people and their families.
Our increased NHS funding will ensure that staffing and other aspects of provision meet the scale of mental health needs, if necessary recruiting more staff to be trained and employed in mental health. We will make sure that no-one needs to travel outside their NHS trust area for residential treatment for mental health problems.
The Green Party will end the immoral punitive target culture introduced into job centres by the coalition government. We will scrap the contracts to private firms like ATOS involved in fitness-for-work assessments for Employment Support Allowance, passing on the task to assess if a person is ready to return to work to the person’s GP. All job centre staff will be trained and monitored to ensure that every client is treated fairly and with respect.
We will abolish the cruel bedroom tax that has done so much harm to the lives of disabled people in particular. We would increase the budget for the Disability Living Allowance / Personal Independence Payments, retain the Independent Living Allowance and increase funding to provide extra free care at home for those in need. Finally, we will support the ‘Time for Change’ programme and offer employment support to those with mental health problems.
Rachel Rogers, Labour Party West Dorset
In the work I’ve done in prisons, with children in care and with vulnerable people in the community, I’ve seen what a low priority mental health is often afforded so I’m exceptionally pleased that the Labour manifesto commits to giving mental health the same priority as physical health and giving people the same right to psychological (aka talking) therapies as they currently have to drugs and medical treatments.
It’s vital that training for public servants such as NHS staff, teachers, police officers and those who work in the Department for Work and Pensions, is expanded to include better understanding of how to work with people suffering from the mental ill-health that often brings us into contact with authorities and how to design services that are more accessible and just. We need to ensure that people can access the services and benefits to which they are entitled and are not discriminated against because of poor mental health or learning disabilities. For example, we wouldn’t put someone in a police cell simply because they had a physical illness and we shouldn’t treat people with mental illness any differently.
Oliver Letwin: The Conservative Party West Dorset
We have been investing heavily in mental health services — and we need to increase that investment in coming years — to ensure that people have access to treatment and support of the highest quality. But it’s also crucial that politicians should take a lead in talking openly about mental illness and in making clear that it is an ordinary part of life, just like physical illness.
We also need to continue supporting those excellent voluntary groups in our communities which provide great support to those suffering from mental illness.
I believe that the programme we have been piloting — to provide special access to treatment for those with mental illness who find themselves unemployed — will help to improve the way that Job Centres interact with those who suffer from such illness.
Thank you to all those who responded and to all those who set the questions.
