Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that people with serious mental health issues are receiving appropriate physical health care.
Alistair Burt
We are committed to ensuring that the physical health of people with serious mental health issues is treated in the same way as the rest of the population.
The delivery of physical checks and interventions to individuals with a serious mental health problem who are in NHS commissioned inpatient settings is now incentivised via a national Commissioning for Quality and Innovation indicator. Any needs identified by these health checks are met with the necessary interventions or referral to another clinician for assessment diagnosis and treatment.
With other initiatives undertaken by NHS England and its partners, which include making information accessible to the public on the availability of health checks and supporting the development and rollout of tools and guidance to improve physical health assessment in primary care, we will continue to increase access to the same health initiatives that benefit the general population. This will support improved health outcomes and reductions in unnecessary emergency and unplanned physical care for people with a serious mental health issue.
