All Party Parliamentary Group for Mental Health

Annual Review 2003

2003 has been a frustrating year in the mental health field with little movement on the reform of the Mental Health Act. The Group held a number of meetings on issues of concern to mental health service users, their carers and professionals. The main points that came out of each of the meetings are summarised below.

January 2003

For the first meeting of 2003 the Group discussed what is possibly one of the biggest problems in mental health services - how to combat stigma. The Group received presentations from Amy Meadows, Campaign Director for the Government’s Mind Out for Mental Health Campaign and Ros Whysall, MHA Training Project Co-ordinator at Mind Your Head part of Tameside & Glossop Association of Mind.

Amy Meadows spoke about the work that the Campaign is doing with various groups including employers, to change attitudes. Ros Whysall spoke about the difficulties faced by people with mental health problems when applying for work if they reveal their psychiatric history.

April 2003

The April meeting focused on alternative and complementary treatments in Mental Health. The first speaker was Jan Scott, Professor of Psychological Treatments Research at the Institute of Psychiatry. She spoke about the use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in treating some people with mental illnesses, including depression. The second speaker was Lara Ellen Dose, Chair of the National Network for the Arts in Health. She spoke about the use of arts and drama therapy in treating and managing mental illnesses. The meeting concluded that both techniques were important and their use in support of medication should be encouraged through better funding.

May 2003

The Group held a joint meeting with the Pharmaceutical Industry All Party Group to discuss whether the concept of modern mental health care is rhetoric or reality. The meeting was addressed by two speakers, Dr Adrianne Reveley a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Maudesley Hospital and Lead Consultant to the National Psychosis Unit and Paul Farmer, Public Affairs Director from the charity Rethink and the Chair of the Mental Health Alliance. The meeting noted that there is evidence to show that the postcode lottery on access to treatments still exists, though the NICE guidelines were a step in the right direction. The speakers also highlighted a problem with the supply of new treatments noting that clinicians can take a long time to change over to using new drugs when they become available.

June 2003

In June the topic for discussion was Black and Minority Ethnic groups and mental health. The meeting was addressed by James Gbesan, Assistant Operations Manager for Rethink and the psychiatrist Professor Sashi Sashidharan.

The Group discussed the development of proposals to improve the experience of mental health services for BME groups. This included the background, purpose and development of the Government's Inside Outside document. The meeting explored how these proposals were being implemented such as through involving people at a local level in making decisions about services and improving access to new treatments.

Unfortunately BME groups are still over-represented in psychiatric services and more needs to be done to address this through real communication about the problems at a local and national level and a strengthening of anti-racism and anti-stigma work.

September 2003

The long-planned Work and Benefits Seminar took place in September. The Group was addressed by a strong panel of speakers including Ben Stayte, Team Leader, Incapacity Benefit Strategy and Dr Philip Sawney, Deputy Chief Medical Adviser, both from the Department for Work and Pensions. The other speakers were Sophie Corlett, Policy Director and Ali Cobb from the Mind Benefits Campaign and Ruth Stanier, Deputy Director at the Social Exclusion Unit and Project Leader for the Mental Health and Social Exclusion project.

The Group noted that though the Government had clearly been very active in reforming access to Incapacity Benefit there were still basic problems being encountered such as filling in long, complicated forms. People with mental health problems may also encounter many problems when re-entering employment and it is clear that employers need to be more flexible.  There was a welcome recognition by civil servants that this is a really big issue for people with mental health problems and Government needs to act.

The Social Exclusion Unit’s inquiry shows how disenfranchised people can become if they have past or current mental health problems and Mind’s research backs this up.

December 2003

In early December the Group joined forces with All Party Groups on Learning Disability, Autism, Disability and Older People to discuss the proposals contained in the draft Mental Incapacity Bill. This was the inaugural meeting of the Learning Disability Group, a welcome addition to the All Party list.

The meeting was addressed by the key players on the Bill: Lord Carter, Chair of the Scrutiny Committee, who spoke about the work of the Committee and its recommendations; Lord Filkin, the Minister responsible for the Bill in the Department for Constitutional Affairs and Steve Broach, Co-Chair of the Making Decisions Alliance, the umbrella group representing interested charities.

There was broad agreement that the draft Bill had successfully tackled the major issues surrounding decision-making for those who lack capacity. The Government is committed to considering the Joint Committee’s recommendations and is expected to produce a Bill in the early summer of 2004.

Annual General Meeting

Later in December the Group held its AGM and the officers were re-elected. The meeting was addressed by speakers from the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) and the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (SCMH).

Dominic Ford, Mental Health Development Manager and Dr Linda Patterson OBE, Medical Director, from the Commission for Health Improvement spoke about their report, ‘What CHI found in Mental Health’. They noted that there were problems particularly in terms of care for older people. Angela Greatley, Director of Policy & Research at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health spoke about their research into funding. Their survey showed that funding earmarked for mental health was not reaching the intended services.

1.        It is clear that more needs to be done to address the discrimination against people from black and minority ethnic communities currently found in mental health services. This includes tackling racism in the health service, running powerful anti-stigma campaigns and involving individuals and groups from BME backgrounds in the delivery and improvement of services.

2.        Funding earmarked for mental health services is still not getting through to front-line services according to studies by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health and Royal College of Psychiatrists. We are concerned that money is being diverted away from key services to address other Government priorities.

3.        The benefits and employment system needs to be improved so that it is easier to navigate for those with mental health problems.

4.       We welcome the Government’s commitment to pre-legislative scrutiny for the new draft of the Mental Health Bill and look forward to seeing much improved legislation focused on the needs of service users and their families and carers.

5.       The Draft Mental Incapacity Bill provided a good legal framework for decision-making. We hope that the Government will produce a full Bill in this session.

Tuesday 30th March, from 5 till 6pm, Room O in Portcullis House - Therapeutic Communities and Possible Treatments for Personality Disorder

Tuesday 27th April, from 11am till 3pm Jubilee Room in the Houses of Parliament – Mental Health Czar.

Tuesday 8th June, from 4 till 5pm - Joint meeting with Drugs Misuse APG - Dual Diagnosis

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health aims to enable Members of both Houses of Parliament and other interested groups to become better informed about mental health issues. The Royal College of Psychiatrists provides the secretarial support for the All Party Group. If you would like further details please contact:

Agnes Wheatcroft, Parliamentary and Policy Officer, The Royal College of Psychiatrists

17 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PGEmail:     awheatcroft@rcpsych.ac.uk

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