§ Mr. Win GriffithsTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy that money raised from the sale of mental hospital sites is used in full for the development of services for the mentally ill.
§ Mr. GristThe Welsh Office proposes to issue later this year revised and consolidated guidance to district health 425W authorities on the management of the National Health Service estate, including the disposal of National Health Service land and buildings. In respect of the use of receipts from sales at mental illness hospital sites this guidance will concentrate on the need, already clearly stated in the Welsh Office mental illness strategy, for health authorities to satisfy themselves in advance of significant reductions in the provision of hospital psychiatric services that there is a pattern of alternative services available which will meet adequately the individual needs of persons suffering from a mental illness who are or would otherwise have been in hospital. The Welsh Office will wish to be assured through the county mental illness plans drawn up by the district health authorities, social services authorities and other interested groups, through the executive committee's annual review process of district health authorities' performance and through the revised arrangements for local consultation on changes in health services that this is happening and in particular that there is in place a financial strategy for the development of a comprehensive new pattern of mental illness services which takes fully into account the contribution that existing service resources, including land and buildings, can make. While, therefore, there is unlikely to be a blanket requirement that all receipts from sales at mental illness hospital sites should be re-invested in the new pattern of services, the Department will wish there to be a clear linkage between the development of local services and the optimal use of the resources which become available.