Yesterday, Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb visited a youth centre in Brent where they announced £150 million was being invested in services to help young people with eating disorders. From the BBC:
Mr Clegg will say he wants to see services transformed, with the focus shifted from expensive institutional care to targeted community-based provision.
Eating disorders cost the NHS around £200m a year, and the bill for in-patient care averages out at £98,750 per admission.
From 2012 to 2013, there were 2,560 hospital admissions for eating disorders in England – a rise of 8% on the previous year.
One in five of those taken into hospital with an eating disorder was admitted and discharged on the same day.
But one in 17 stayed in hospital for longer than six months.
Brent Central PPC Ibrahim Taguri was there too and he had this to say:
Mental health is just as significant in formative development of children as physical health. It’s been far too easy to ignore this reality for too long.
But neglecting mental health needs simply means turning a blind eye to many of the longstanding issues Brent faces on a daily basis, from combating child poverty, to reducing anti-social behaviour and improving educational attainment.
Organisations such as the Brent Centre for Young People have been instrumental in pressing for change. Today’s announcement demonstrates the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to equal value of mental and physical health, ensuring the necessary support and treatment, and ending the stigma surrounding those that need help.
Recognising and treating these things early makes a huge difference to young people. The idea is that young people with eating disorders and self harm will get early access to services in their communities with properly trained teams, making hospital admission a last resort. These would be tested next year and rolled out the following year.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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4 Comments
£150 million such a nice round figure to pluck out of the air just before a GE. I wonder how they came to this figure? Is this on top of the £200 million spent last year or instead? Is it £150 million every year, just a one off, or spread over many years. When does the money start being spent – now – or some never-never time in the future. They have done nothing whilst in office and expect voters to fall for this. Cheap electioneering and nothing more .
Malc
The Daily Mail says ……
The Autumn Statement will include a £150 million investment in treatment for children and young people with eating disorders.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he had secured the funding, which will be rolled out the next five years, to stem the growing numbers of children as young as five being admitted to hospital with disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating.
The Deputy Prime Minister, who has long campaigned for mental health services to be given parity with physical care, said he wants the money to support early interventions and community-based treatments, and to lead to the development of waiting time and access standards for eating disorders by 2016.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2857320/150m-eating-disorder-children.html#ixzz3Kn5ea800
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
No-one cares. No wonder the Lib Dems are a national laughing stock.
Even on your own website, this article, posted yesterday has two comments, this post (pointing out the total irrelevance of the policy compared to the crisis in our nation) will increase the interest by 33%.
The current criticism of British politics, other than the UKIP narrative that Westmnster is just an out of touch metropolitan elite, is that Clegg, Miliband and Cameron are unremittingly SMALL TIME.
Clegg just proved it here. No wonder he was nowhere to be seen in the Commons today…
The coalition obvious has lots of money to splash around at the moment. They have just dumped a further £40m into the SME Business Broadband Voucher Scheme, only problem only ~£7.5m of the original £100m has been spent and the focus is restricted to 22 “Super Connected Cities”.