Mental Health Bill [HL]

That is not what I am saying at all. Essentially, the Mental Health Act is concerned, as it ought to be, with the legal processes around mental health, mental disorder, compulsion and treatment. It is much more difficult to move on from there to specifying services to be provided to a certain group. That is inconsistent with the way we develop legislation in relation to the health service and to the responsibilities of the National Health Service to provide certain services. Noble Lords can shake their heads, but simply specifying that in this case there is an absolute statutory provision that must be provided by the NHS, come hither nor tither, has clear practical consequences. That is why we believe that the approach of developing and improving services, using the code of practice to influence the way those services are developed, has to be the right way through. I assure noble Lords that the further improvement of CAMH services is one of our priorities. It features in the public service agreement for the Department of Health. We are working towards the achievement of comprehensive CAMHS in every area of the country by the end of 2006, and wish to see it maintained thereafter. CAMHS regional development workers continue to assess both the NHS and local authorities in meeting those challenges. The commitment to improve CAMHS is backed up by significant additional funding—approximately £300 million in the years 2003-04 to 2005-06, payable to local authorities in the form of a CAMHS grant, and direct to primary care trusts. We have made further additional funds available: £134 million in 2006-07 to the NHS and local authorities for the development of CAMHS. The children’s national service framework, the CAMHS standard, gives guidance on what is to be expected in a comprehensive CAMH. It states: "““All children and young people, from birth to their eighteenth birthday, who have mental health problems and disorders have access to timely, integrated, high quality, multi-disciplinary mental health services to ensure effective assessment, treatment and support, for them””," their parents or carers, and other family members. I could go on. Considerable progress has already been made in bringing CAMHS out from under the shadow of adult mental health. CAMHS now has a profile and a priority of its own. Benchmarking surveys of provision have been completed. There is a strong feeling that central investment has led to a major change on the ground, facilitating a significant increase in multi-disciplinary and joint working across professions. My understanding, from a CAMHS mapping exercise, is that between October 2005 and February 2006 the number of CAMHS teams increased by 16 per cent over 2003, staff by 11 per cent compared with 2004 and new cases seen increased by 12 per cent over 2004. The amendment seeks to enshrine what is already good practice. We know it is not perfect. We know there is a long way to go, but improvements are taking place and will continue to take place. Of course, we want to eliminate the use of adult psychiatric wards for adolescents, except where more mature, independent adolescents prefer to be admitted to a ward specialising in treating young adults. That was communicated to the service in a DH/DfES report. We began collecting detailed information about the use of adult psychiatric wards for children and adolescents in April 2005 to allow performance management of that aspect of the service. The draft revised code of practice states that where possible children and young people admitted to hospital should be accommodated with others of their own age group in children’s wards or adolescent units, separate from adults, and with access to CAMHS. That is an issue that should be tackled through guidance and monitoring, rather than through legislation. As I have said, there is much more to do, but at least we are now building on a foundation of concerted improvements and investments that have taken place in the past three years. I sympathise with all the points made about defects in the current service, but I am absolutely convinced that the way forward is to build on current good practice through the normal processes of the NHS and local government. I turn briefly to the comments of my noble friend Lady Howells on Amendment No. 41. She certainly made a powerful case. We are considering how we can make advocacy more widely available. The draft code has much to offer in that area. I can assure my noble friend that I am giving this matter every consideration, but I suggest that we might return to the subject when we debate Amendments Nos. 38 and 39.