§ Mrs. Doris Fisherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list in the OFFICIAL REPORT the local authorities which have been refused loan sanction for community care projects for both the mentally ill and mentally handicapped for the year 1973–74.
§ Mr. AlisonAuthorities which submitted larger proposals than it was possible to approve for 1973–74 were
County Councils:Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely, Cheshire, Cumberland, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Hunts and Peterborough, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincs. (Holland), Lincs. (Lindsey), Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, East Suffolk, East Sussex, Warwickshire, Westmorland, Worcestershire, Yorkshire East Riding, Yorkshire West Riding, Yorkshire North Riding,County Boroughs:Birkenhead, Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool, Bolton, Bournemouth, Bristol, Burnley, Burton on Trent, Canterbury, Chester, Darlington, Derby, Dudley, Great Yarmouth, Halifax, Kingston-upon-Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Plymouth, Ports-mouth. Preston, Reading, Rochdale, Rotherham, Southampton, Stockport, Stoke-on-Trent, Teesside, Torbay, Tynemouth, Wallasey, Walsall, Warley, Wolverhampton, Worcester.London Boroughs:Barnet, Brent, Camden, Croydon, Enfield, Greenwich, Islington, Lambeth, Merton.
§ Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will take immediate steps to consult with Portsmouth and other similar cities on the need and way to provide adequate care and support facilities for the mentally ill and handicapped, with particular reference to his expressed objective of reducing the number of patients in hospitalised care; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Sir K. JosephMost of the local authorities, including Portsmouth, which at present have no residential accommodation for the mentally ill have included such schemes in their current three-year programme. Schemes for day care of the mentally ill are however in some cases disappointingly few. My Department will shortly be issuing a circular giving further guidance about154W the development of local authority services for the mentally ill and emphasising the importance of adequate levels of residential and day care provision, guidelines for which were set in a circular issued last year. My Department's officers will be following this up with discussions with individual authorities.
The White Paper "Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped" (Cmnd. 4683) published in 1971 recommended a substantial shift in the balance of care from hospital to community services and hospital and local authorities were also asked to prepare joint plans for development of their services on the lines recommended. The first of these are now being studied by my officials.