Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I should like to say a word on behalf of those who have had to care for family members—often a young member of the family—who have suffered from severe mental illness. Those who have suffered that experience—and I am one—know how marooned they feel when they find that someone in their family has a serious mental illness. If somebody has a broken leg, you can locate the leg and take the medicine. If somebody has even cancer, it may not be curable but at least you have the knowledge of the location or locations of the cancer and the topical treatment that is to be applied to it. The problem for families who experience in their midst mental illness is that no medicine can be applied topically to the place where the hurt or illness is taking place. The prognosis is uncertain, the mortality rate is depressingly high and usually at the hands of the sick person, and accessing good health service facilities is quite chancy, I am afraid. There is a real postcode lottery with mental health treatment. If, for example, you live in a remote rural area, only some therapies will be available and they may be the wrong therapies, particularly if the patient is a child or adolescent suffering from serious mental illness. Therefore, I simply say to the Minister who, as has already been said, cares deeply about these issues, that the adoption of this very simple amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Walton, rightly described it, would send out such a telling message of support to families who have to care for people who suffer, perhaps temporarily, from mental illness that it would be seen as a declaration of purpose by this Government.