§ Mr. BurnsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made on the initiative to provide accommodation and psychiatric care for mentally ill people sleeping rough in central London.
§ Mr. DorrellI was pleased to be able to open formally last month the first of the specialist hostels to be funded under the Department of Health's programme. Work is continuing on a further five hostel schemes, all of which are expected to open before the end of this financial year. New community-based psychiatric teams, along with an evaluation team, have been set up in the three Thames health regions concerned, and are already working with mentally ill people on the streets.
Today I can announce that, in collaboration with the Mental Health Foundation, we expect to make available further revenue funding totalling about £2.7 million over the next three years. The Department of Health will provide £1.5 million, and the Mental Health Foundation will he endeavouring to raise the remaining £1.2 million from private sources, subject to detailed consideration of the projects.
This extra money will give central London's health and social services authorities the opportunity to expand their community psychiatric teams, to enable them to provide support for mentally ill people within the new direct access hostels being established by the Department of the Environment under its rough sleepers initiative. Progress on the latter initiative is the subject of an announcement today by my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning.