Mental Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, this has been a short but important debate. The argument between us, if it is such, is that we believe that there are sufficient existing duties providing for the assessment of patients and the provision of services in legislative provision at the moment, which makes the amendment unnecessary. However, I fully accept that noble Lords have raised issues in relation to the provision of adequate assessment, which deserves every consideration. The Government readily acknowledge that the issues that they have raised are real and that there are people who experience issues in accessing assessment and services. Noble Lords gave examples of problems in Committee and at this stage. Because we believe that existing statutory duties cover the point, the issue is how to ensure that statutory services ensure that the kind of problems that they have raised do not occur in practice. We have to build on the progress that we have made in recent years. The national service framework has laid the foundation for the kind of service that we want in mental health care. We have seen many more resources put in, with more people employed, and services such as assertive outreach, which we have discussed in the context of supervised community treatment. One hundred and nine early intervention teams have been formed, as well as 343 crisis intervention teams and 262 outreach teams. I am not at all complacent. I realise that there is more to do and that, if the noble Baroness is right and there is no level playing field in practice between physical and mental services, we need to ensure that in statute there is a level playing field. The issue is how to ensure that there is one with regard to services on the ground. I am afraid—because I know that noble Lords may find this answer tedious—that we will not achieve that through legislation. We have to achieve it through determination to continue improvements to ensure that people do not slip through the net and that when assessment and services are needed they are provided. But there is no moving away from the hard graft that needs to be done on the ground to ensure that that happens.