Mental Health (Hansard, 22 November 2001)

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the occupancy rate of beds is in acute mental health wards in each London hospital in respect of(a) detained patients and (b) voluntary patients. [16624]

§ Mr. Hutton
I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 5 November 2001,Official Report, columns 101–02W.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made in the mapping of local mental health services; and if he will publish the results. [16622]

§ Jacqui Smith
The results of the comprehensive mapping of mental health services conducted in autumn 2000 were made available to local implementation teams (LIT) in January 2001 and have been available on a Durham University website in July 2001. This contains all data supplied by each LIT for the 2000 Mapping. The database will remain available to LITs for their continued use for local planning and monitoring purposes.
421W
As part of the comprehensive review process between April and October 2001 the Mapping has been updated to provide a picture of service provision as of 30 September 2001. Reports based on analysis and summary of the data in the form of tables and maps will be available by the end of January 2002.
The data provided by the Mapping 2001 will be published in the form of an atlas and will also be available to the public on the Department's website at www.doh.gov.uk/servicemapping/index.htm.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he plans to commission the development of a tool kit to support mental health services in promoting mental health for people from ethnic minority communities; and if he will make a statement on(a) the work so far and (b) the cost. [17089]

§ Jacqui Smith
Work on developing the tool kit will be taken forward under the auspices of the National Institute for Mental Health in its 2002–03 work programme.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health at what age mental health services users are transferred from adolescent to adult services. [16612]

§ Jacqui Smith
This is an area in which local practice varies quite widely at present.
The National Service Framework for Mental Health specified that local arrangements (including service protocols) should be in place to ensure clarity in the handling of referrals of young people in the borderline ages (for example, 16 to 21 years) to ensure that no young person's mental health needs remain unmet.
Earlier this year, Ministers announced that child and adolescent mental health services will form part of the planned Children's National Service Framework, alongside maternity and hospital and social services for children. The Children's National Service Framework will be based on key NHS Plan values including the integration of services, partnership working and breaking down professional barriers. The question of unifying transfer ages between services will be fully considered in the context of developing standards and good practice guidance for this new and important service framework.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) medium and (b) low secure beds there are for mental health patients. [16611]

§ Jacqui Smith
Returns indicate that at April 2001, the latest date for which information is currently available, there were 2,231 medium secure beds and 1,353 other secure beds for mental health patients.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average annual cost is per patient to the NHS of a person with a diagnosis of severe mental illness. [17221]

§ Jacqui Smith
People with severe mental illness may access a range of National Health Service services at various times and in no predictable way and it is not possible from the information held centrally to disaggregate the costs of different services to enable the calculation of an average annual cost to the NHS per severely mentally ill patient.
422W

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what procedures are in place, and what changes are planned, to ensure that mental health-related calls to NHS Direct are handled in such a way that those contemplating suicide receive the treatment they need. [17223]

§ Jacqui Smith
NHS Direct nurse advisers use formalised computer based clinical assessment systems to enable them to offer appropriate support and advice to callers who may be contemplating suicide. In addition they receive specific training to assist them in undertaking a risk assessment which includes the assessment of potential deliberate self-harm. Links have been made and protocols are in place to enable nurse advisers to refer callers to local specialist mental health crisis services and to appropriate mental health helplines.