Westminster Life: Fixing our broken mental health provision
“society is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable people”
There are moments when you can point at a government's choices and see exactly why they matter for a city like ours, writes Andrew Pakes MP.
In recent weeks we’ve seen two of them. Prime Minister Andy Burnham used one of his first big announcements to set out how his government will get everyone sleeping rough off the streets by Christmas, backed by a new £442 million package that takes total investment in tackling homelessness to over £4 billion. It's the largest commitment any government has ever made to rough sleeping and homelessness, and in Peterborough it will make all the difference. Our city has always felt the sharp end of this crisis; for years we have had a higher rate of homelessness than the national average, while previous governments were content to look away. In the past, ministers wrote off rough sleeping as too big a problem to solve, or simply not their responsibility.
This government takes a different view: that a society is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable people.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will receive a share of this funding, worth over £7 million across the next three years, to help our brilliant outreach workers and local charities like the Light Project and Hope into Action get people off our streets and into stable homes, with the health and addiction support many need alongside a roof over their heads. I've seen for myself the dedication of the people who run our shelters and soup kitchens, often stretched thin and under-resourced. This investment should mean they get some of the backing they deserve. Many of these groups, although not all, are brought together by faith.
The same principle runs through another big announcement: the biggest overhaul of adult mental health services in a generation. £343 million is being invested in 159 new NHS mental health facilities across England, including investment for a new mental health emergency department and community mental health centre for Peterborough.
Mental health comes up on almost every doorstep I knock on in this city. I hear story after story from people who tell me they've waited months for help, who feel they’ve been let down and left behind. That's not good enough, and it's why I'm glad to see this funding coming through. These new centres mean people will be able to walk in and get support without a referral or a months-long wait, while those in crisis get specialist care instead of a chair in a busy emergency department. Local NHS staff, including our First Response Service, which helped pioneer mental health crisis support through NHS 111, will help shape how these new services are delivered here.
Neither announcement will fix everything overnight, and there's still a long way to go. But together, they show the choices this government is making: to stand up and act on issues previous governments preferred to ignore. That's the change I came into politics to deliver, and, as always, I'll keep pushing to make sure our city gets its fair share.