Mental Hospitals: Closures (Hansard, 27 April 1989)

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, we are aware of three mental illness hospitals approved for total closure in 1986 and one in 1987. Numbers for 1988 are not yet available. Four mental illness hospitals are planned to close in 1989, two in 1990 and five in 1991. One of the hospitals planned to close in 1989 is that approved for closure in 1987. Figures on ward closures are not collected centrally.

Lord Campbell of Croy
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Until decisions are taken on the Griffiths Report, will the Government ensure that the rate of closures does not overtake the necessary provision of care in the community for patients suffering from serious mental illness?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, the question of discharge of a patient into the community is entirely a matter for the consultant psychiatrist, who must be happy that the patient will benefit from a more independent living environment. There should be no question of a patient being discharged until his needs have been carefully assessed and arrangements have been made with local authorities and other care agencies for those needs to be met, including appropriate accommodation where necessary.

§ Lord Ennals
My Lords, does the Minister agree that in the 1986 disabled persons Act an assurance was given and a statutory requirement was made for there to be proper planning for people discharged from psychiatric hospitals? Will he give an absolute assurance that those obligations will be carried out before patients are discharged from hospital into a community which seems not to care for them and to leave them destitute on the streets?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I thought I had made that clear. We also made it clear in planning guidance issued to health and local authorities in July 1988 that by 1991 each district must have developed a care programme to provide a system of co-ordinated arid continuing care for people chronically disabled by mental illness. We also emphasised that each district should ensure that a consultant psychiatrist has special responsibility for rehabilitation and continuing care.

§ Lord Ennals
My Lords, does the Minister realise that that is not happening? It was because it was not happening that the former Secretary of State for Social Services, Mr. Norman Fowler, asked Sir Roy Griffiths to produce a report. Does not the Minister realise that the department is heading into absolute chaos as regards these tragic people?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I thought that I had made that point clear. I think the noble Lord knows my answer on the Griffiths Report. However, for his benefit I shall repeat the answer on Griffiths, which is that the Government are actively considering the report of Sir Roy Griffiths with a view to bringing forward proposals in the near future. The issues involved are too complex and important to admit easy answers. The report offered only one of a number of possible solutions. There is a great deal of other material to consider, and we are determined to take the time necessary to arrive at the best solution.

Lord Winstanley
My Lords, do not the figures which the noble Lord has given to the House clearly suggest that Section 7 of the disabled persons Act must be implemented very soon? That would mean that the needs of long-term hospital patients would at least be assessed before they are discharged. Further, as the noble Lords, Lord Campbell of Croy and Lord Ennals, have suggested as regards the provision of those needs, we need to know how and by whom community care is to be provided, and whether it is to be provided along the lines of the recommendations of the Griffiths Report or otherwise. We must know how it is to be provided, and soon.

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord knows that we shall give an answer to the Griffiths Report when it is appropriate. As regards Section 7, officials from the department have been involved in a series of discussions with local authority and health authority representatives to identify the processes which will make up the requirements under the important section of the Act. The timetable for implementation will depend upon the outcome of those discussions.

§ Lord Kilmarnock
My Lords, the Griffiths Report has been in the hands of the Government for more than a year. Although we entirely accept that the issues raised are complex, will the Minister give us some indication of when we might expect a response?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, again the noble Lord knows that I cannot give an answer as regards when we shall respond to the report. But, as a sign of the importance with which Her Majesty's Government view the Griffiths Report, I can say that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is chairing a small group of Ministers who are principally involved in the matter in a short series of meetings. Her involvement is a sign of the great importance attached to this issue in the current political agenda.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, the noble Lord has given a very full reply. However, does he 1365 agree that the proper and the compassionate thing to do, pending the Government's decision on the Griffiths Report, would be to suspend the closure of the mental hospitals?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for saying that I gave a full reply. The noble Lord sitting next to him has not often said that to me. It is not a question of whether we should suspend the closure of hospitals. There is still a surplus number of beds in mental hospitals. In 1986 the total number of in-patients was 60,000. There is still a total number of staff beds in mental illness hospitals and other units of 71,000.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, will the Minister say whether it is the Government's intention to close down Durham Park mental hospital? I know that it has been on the list for some time. Is he aware that beds in St.Olave's hospital in Rotherhithe are crying out to be used by local people? That hospital has been closed, by and large, since about 1980.

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, if I caught the name of the hospital correctly, it is not one that I have listed as being scheduled for closure in the period up to 1991.

§ Lord Allen of Abbeydale
My Lords, the Government have had nearly three years now to discuss the implementation of Section 7. They have still given no indication of when it is likely to come into force. Could not the Minister be a little more forthcoming?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I cannot be more specific but I shall certainly draw what the noble Lord has said to the attention of my right honourable friend.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, if the responsibility and decision about closure is a matter for the Government and if the provision for these unfortunate people is a matter for the local authorities, is it a reasonable assumption that before the decision to close is made by the Government there is consultation with the local authorities to ensure that there is somewhere for them to go? I hope that I have not put it too simply.

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, it is not only the local authority; it is also the health authority. Of course there is always consultation between Her Majesty's Government and those bodies.