HC Deb 01 July 1980 vol 987 cc1285-7
6. Mr. Kilroy-Silk

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the action he is taking to ensure that National Health Service hospitals provide hospital care and treatment for mentally disordered offenders.

Mr. Patrick Jerkin

The NHS already accepts, under the Mental Health Act, a large number of detained patients from courts and prisons each year. There continues to be difficulty with a smaller number where a hospital place cannot be found or where the power to detain the person under the Act is in doubt. I and my Department will continue to tackle this by discussion with the NHS at all levels, close consultation with the Home Office and professional bodies and with the relevant trade unions and through research into the problem.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

Does not the Secretary of State accept that there would, quite rightly, be a major public outcry if hospitals were to refuse to accept and treat accident victims or kidney patients? Is it not both disgraceful and indefensible that the National Health Service should refuse to admit, treat and care for mentally disordered persons who, as a consequence, are in prison? There are 446 of them to date and that is not an insignificant or minimal number. When will the Secretary of State assert his responsibility for the National Health Service and insist that the service—doctors, nurses and ancillary staff—lives up to its proper obligations to mentally disordered and mentally ill persons?

Mr. Jenkin

The hon. Gentleman has made a considerable reputation for himself for campaigning on this issue and he deserves, I think, the thanks of the whole House. We need to get the figures into perspective. In all, the National Health Service has, at any time, about 2,500 detained patients who have come from prisons and the courts. The service accepts almost 1,000 such patients a year and in 1978 the special hospitals admitted 187 of them. The main concern of my Department and the Home Office is with about 150 sentenced prisoners suffering from mental illness, within the terms of the Mental Health Act. The numbers, therefore, are not large.

I fully accept the responsibility of the National Health Service to accept these patients as rapidly as possible. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I recently had discussions with one of the trade unions involved and one or two hospitals where particular difficulties have arisen. Those discussions showed me some of the misunderstandings which may be creating difficulties in a number of cases. I am now considering the best way of overcoming those misunderstandings and hoping to get more movement in the matter.

Miss Fookes

May I support the point made by the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk)? May I ask my right hon. Friend to insist that in future hospitals do take mentally disordered offenders? It appears that at present they have the right not to do that.

Mr. Jenkin

I am well aware of the point made by my hon. Friend. Whether or not a patient should or should not be admitted to a hospital for treatment is, primarily, a matter of clinical judgment. That is not a matter which it would be right for any Minister to seek to override. But where clinicians have decided that a particular admission and particular treatment is right and appropriate, I am bound to say that I think it is intolerable that others take it upon themselves to deny the patient the treatment and the admission that has been recommended.