§ Mr. Cyril Smithasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied with the implementation of his programme for transferring long-stay patients from psychiatric hospitals to community care; and if he will make a statement about the level of funds available to local authorities to implement this policy.
§ Sir K. JosephThe Government's policies are directed towards the development of a comprehensive service for the mentally ill, including a full range of general hospital and local authority social services, in which the needs of each mentally ill person can be met in the way most suitable to him.
The development of the full range of social services needed involves a substantial programme of expansion which must necessarily be spread over several years. 168 residential schemes for the 152W mentally ill, with 2,562 places, and 81 day-care schemes, with 3,234 places, have been included in the lists of schemes in their current three-year capital programmes for which local authorities have been notified that I would hope to give loan approval. Implementation of these schemes would almost double the existing levels of local authority provision. I attach a high priority to local authorities continuing to develop and expand their programmes as resources permit.
The value of loan approvals for capital schemes for the mentally ill has risen in each of the last three years and I envisage that within the total resources available for the local authority social services there will be further increases in the future.