§ Mrs Reneé Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many day-care places are available 510W for mentally ill (a) children and (b) adults in the West Midlands; and what plans there are to increase these numbers.
§ Sir George Young[pursuant to his reply, 29 June 1981, c. 294]: Day-care places for the mentally ill are provided both by the National Health Sevice and by local authorities. The number of NHS day hospital places in the West Midlands at 31 December 1980—the latest dale for which information is centrally available—was 1,681. Current plans of the regional health authority envisage that the number of NHS day hospital places will almost double by the end of this decade. In addition, facilities exist for patients to attend main hospitals on a day basis without the formal designation of a day place.
The most recent information held centrally about local authority provision shows that at 31 March 1980 there were 801 day places available of which 667 were provided in local authorities' own day centres. Information about local authority plans is not available.
It is not possible, from the information available, to distinguish between day places for children and those for adults.