Tag Archives: norman lamb

Caron Lindsay

Norman Lamb warns against demonising people with mental ill health at Hallowe’en

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 31st October 2014 - 1:55 pm

We’ve always had great fun at Hallowe’en in our house. We love the guisers (none of this new fangled Trick or Treat stuff, if you please). My husband loves carving the pumpkin even if he isn’t as elaborate as some. My Facebook timeline has been full of everything from Pumpkin Daleks to the delicious irony of an actual Cinderella carriage. I have some very creative friends.

The Teenager is spending Hallowe’en with her friends and will be headed out in vampire dress leaving us to greet the scores of little devils, ghouls, zombies, fairies, princesses, ghosts and animals who will come …

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb MP writes…Liberal Democrats will fight relentlessly for NHS to have funding it needs

By Norman Lamb MP | Thu 23rd October 2014 - 5:30 pm

Today Simon Stevens, the Chief Executive of NHS England published his 5-year Forward Look, setting out the challenges facing our health and care system in the coming years.

It makes sobering reading.  Simon Stevens sets out the huge scale of the financial challenge facing us in the years ahead as we continue to adapt to an ageing population, and increasing numbers of people living longer with multiple chronic conditions.  We also need more investment to ensure that people with mental health problems can get the same standard of care and support as with physical health.

Earlier this month, the Liberal Democrats set out their priorities for the NHS.  We committed to investing at least £1bn extra in our health and care system in each year in the next parliament.  £500m of that will go to mental health to ensure mental health patients get fair treatment, and can access the support they need.  And by the end of the next parliament we will give each carer £250 a year to recognise the immense contribution they make to society.

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The Voice

Praise for Norman Lamb’s work on mental health

By The Voice | Wed 8th October 2014 - 7:18 pm

Here is the video shown to Conference showcasing the work that Norman Lamb has done on mental health which was shown before his speech. 

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NewsHound

LibLink: Norman Lamb – Supporting general practice

By NewsHound | Thu 21st August 2014 - 1:02 pm

Norman LambThe GP magazine has run a piece by Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb on the party’s plans to support general practice.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Liberal Democrats are proud to have ringfenced health spending over the course of this Parliament. With an ageing population, and emerging medical challenges, such as the growth in long-term conditions, facing our health service it may be a given that protecting health spending is a sensible thing to do.

That was not, however, the case in 2010. The coalition has made sure that we have protected the health budget, but the Labour party said that this was irresponsible, and in Wales have cut the health budget by 8%. Sadly, on this crucial area there is simply not consensus.

When faced with these emerging challenges what is needed is to look at how we approach providing health care. We need big shifts in care: from repair to prevention, from fragmentation to integration, from impersonal to personal. That is why we are committed to providing better care, closer to home, and combining health and social care budgets. We also want to see more joined up care – hospitals working with GPs, district nurses and social care workers. There is also an opportunity to better utilise technology in our health service, but at the heart of any changes will be GPs.

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Caron Lindsay

Norman Lamb announces task force to tackle “unfit for purpose” mental health services for children and young people

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 20th August 2014 - 1:15 pm

Norman Lamb, Minister for Consumer AffairsWhen your child suffers from a mental health problem, be it crippling, life limiting anxiety, devastating Depression, an eating disorder, schizophrenia or any other condition which causes them suffering and distress, you want them diagnosed and treated quickly and close to home. You want them to have that support for as long as they need it, not for it to be abruptly withdrawn at a particular date on the calendar.

There is nothing more devastating for a parent than to see your child suffer. You need to …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP: Liberal Democrats announce package of measures to help carers

By Paul Burstow | Tue 19th August 2014 - 2:59 pm

Care in the home Some rights reserved by British Red CrossThere are 6.5 million carers in the UK today looking after friends and family who started to need a little help to carry on their day to day lives. Sadly for both carers and those they care for, a little help can become a lot more as conditions deteriorate and people are able to do less for themselves.

That one in eight of us is willing to selflessly prioritise the needs of our loved ones is truly inspirational. But too often as …

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The Voice

Clegg: “I want to see Britain become the world leader in the next breakthrough in mental health research”

By The Voice | Fri 8th August 2014 - 4:35 pm

lib dem mental illness posterThe Lib Dems have unveiled plans to increase funding spent on mental health research by £50m, by 2020, as the party seeks to ensure it’s are treated as seriously as physical illnesses are. Here’s Nick Clegg:

“Mental health issues have been treated as a sort of Cinderella service compared to physical health issues. I want people who are dealing with depression to be as effectively treated as if they had diabetes. That is why I want to see Britain become the world leader in the next breakthrough

…

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NewsHound

The Right Hon Norman Lamb MP

By NewsHound | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 2:24 pm

LDV awards norman lambNo, that isn’t an error.

Norman Lamb has just been made a member of the Privy Council, which entitles him to be given the Right Hon treatment.  That privilege is automatically bestowed on Cabinet ministers, the Leader of the Opposition and senior judges, but other ministers are added from time to time.

From my research (ie a quick look at Wikipedia), I have discovered that the Privy Council advises the monarch, and in the past was the most powerful body in the country. Today, its powers have been transferred to the Cabinet, which technically is a committee of the Privy Council.

Membership is for life and at present there are 600 members of the Privy Council.  They only meet in full on the death of a monarch, or, intriguingly, when the Monarch gets engaged, which last happened in 1939.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrats promise £250 Carer’s Bonus

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 3rd July 2014 - 11:30 am

Care in the home Some rights reserved by British Red CrossNick Clegg has announced that a Liberal Democrat Government would give carers an annual payment of £250. This comes on top of several measures introduced in Government to help those who care for family members, both practical and financial,  including;

  • £800m Department for Education funding to local authorities to fund short breaks for disabled children and their families.
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NewsHound

LibLink: Norman Lamb: Volunteers play a key role in the health care system

By NewsHound | Thu 12th June 2014 - 2:15 pm

Care in the home Some rights reserved by British Red Cross

Norman Lamb has been writing for the Eastern Daily Press about the importance of volunteering. He looks at the sorts of things people can do and the difference it makes. He sees spending time with others as a very important part of keeping people healthy.

Last Friday I set off from my constituency office in North Walsham to visit an elderly lady I met through a local volunteering scheme. My job is to take her books from the

…

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NewsHound

LibLink: Norman Lamb: Dementia, loneliness and how we can help

By NewsHound | Wed 14th May 2014 - 11:29 am

My motherIn Sunday’s Observer, Norman Lamb wrote about the importance of the Dementia Friends initiative. He starts by describing a situation that’s becoming all to common for people with Dementia and their carers:

It is four o’clock in the morning. A man has been roused from an already fitful sleep by his wife. She is upset and confused. And she has wet the bed. He has to comfort her and change the sheets at the same time. Eventually he is able to return to bed and get a little bit of rest

…

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The Voice

Norman Lamb: Ensuring good quality care is essential to Lib Dem mission for fairer society

By The Voice | Sat 3rd May 2014 - 10:57 am

Stay Well At Home Service, Evesham, BritainThe BBC reports that those seeking to work in care homes will have to have a certificate before being allowed to look after people without supervision.

New care workers will have to earn a training certificate within 12 weeks of starting a job in a hospital or care home, the BBC has learned.

The initiative comes in from March next year in England for staff including hospital healthcare assistants.

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The Voice

Nick Clegg: “Don’t put mentally ill kids in cell”

By The Voice | Tue 18th February 2014 - 8:52 am

One of the many horrible injustices faced by people in the throes of a mental health crisis is that, rather than get the medical help they need, they’re locked up in a police cell.

Norman Lamb and Nick Clegg have been doing something to ensure that these people have better care. A new Crisis Care Concordat between Police, paramedics and health services should deliver important changes:

  • Health-based places of safety and beds are available 24/7 in case someone experiences a mental health crisis
  • Police custody should not be used because mental health services are not available and police vehicles should also not be

…

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Stephen Tall

Après Nick: which Lib Dem MPs are best-placed to become the next Lib Dem leader?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 16th February 2014 - 12:00 pm

Today’s Independent has an interesting story speculating on the Lib Dem leadership contest to come if the 2015 election result triggers Nick Clegg’s resignation. It’s one of the features of this parliament – perhaps linked to it being a fixed-term in which we know the dates are all known – that there hasn’t been nearly as much gossip about future leadership bids in any of the three main parties.

Anyway, the Indy story seeks to make up a little for that absence: Nick Clegg’s rivals for the Lib Dems leadership told to rev up. The premise of the article …

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Caron Lindsay

“A wake-up call on mental illness”

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 28th January 2014 - 10:40 am

Sarah Chisnall is a Scottish public affairs consultant and mental health campaigner. She’s also married to Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West Mike Crockart.

On Sunday, she wrote a powerful piece for Scotland on Sunday talking about her experience of living with Bulimia and Depression and how she pledged to speak out to tackle the stigma attached to mental illness.

The stigma surrounding mental illness prevents us from speaking out to family, friends, let alone the wider world. I have always worried what friends might think and how it could affect my career or that of my husband, Mike Crockart, who is

…

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Linda Jack

Opinion: Closing the gap

By Linda Jack | Tue 21st January 2014 - 4:10 pm

closing the gapYesterday was an important day for anyone concerned about the state of mental health care in this country. It was also an important day for me as not only did I find myself agreeing with Nick for the fourth time in a fortnight (scary but true) but I could applaud a coalition policy.

Just over a year ago I lost my younger sister Sarah, who was suffering from schizo affective disorder.  As a family we had grown up with a bi-polar father at a time when so few of us, or the wider population, understood the condition. With my sister we understood more, but were only too aware of how little others did. I haven’t written about Sarah yet as it is still too painful – that is a story for another day. But, I have always taken a particular interest in mental health and bringing mental health services up to the standard of the rest of the health service. Even for someone like me (who is not particularly afraid to challenge), my interaction with the services has been horrendously frustrating and myself and my family nearly always felt as if we were being totally ignored. Getting anyone to do anything was like constantly banging your head against a brick wall, exhausting, frustrating and painful.

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes… Government should make New Year’s resolution to tackle mental health employment scandal

By Paul Burstow | Tue 31st December 2013 - 9:00 am

Mental health has rightly gone up the political agenda since the coalition came to power. Long neglected, mental health problems cost the UK in excess of £105 billion annually and affect one in four of the population.

Earlier this month saw publication of the most comprehensive picture of progress on mental health. The government’s Mental Health Dashboard brings together in one place mental health data from a wide range of sources for the first time. Its aim is to monitor the progress achieved in implementing the No Health Without Mental Health strategy.

My successor at the Department of Health, care …

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Stephen Tall

Norman Lamb is surely right: pensioners who own their own homes and have more than £23,000 savings are ‘quite wealthy’

By Stephen Tall | Wed 16th October 2013 - 10:25 pm

“If someone as well as their home has substantial other assets, money in the bank, shares or whatever, should they be expected to use those assets to pay for care? Or should we say, we will always defer the costs of selling their home? If you’ve got a vast amount of money in the bank, you’re quite wealthy, it’s desirable that we protect that money but the scheme has to be affordable. If together with owning your own home, you have more than £23,000-odd in the bank, the question is should you be expected to use that money. You are

…

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Caron Lindsay

LDVideo: Norman Lamb says he’s on a mission for better mental health care

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th October 2013 - 4:00 pm

Norman LambNorman Lamb has given an interview to the BBC about mental health provision after a joint BBC/Community Care magazine investigation found that 1700 mental health beds had been lost in recent years. To his credit, there was no spin from him, no excuses. He simply acknowledged that the current situation wasn’t good enough, explained what he’s already done in terms of better community care and changing the NHS Mandate to give mental health parity with physical health and finally said what he was hoping to achieve in the future.

He said:

I know that there are problems and I’m absolutely determined that we address them. We owe it to people who have mental health problems that we provide them with the best possible care that’s available to them. There are some great examples of care around the country but there are too many failures. It’s because there is institutional bias against mental health which has to end…

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The Voice

A reply to Matt on welfare by Lib Dem ministers Norman Lamb and Steve Webb: “We believe in standing up for the vulnerable”

By The Voice | Sun 6th October 2013 - 8:30 am

This week, Lib Dem Voice published a deeply personal account by one of our readers, Matt: I need the Liberal Democrats to stand up for me when Conservative ministers denigrate me. It was read by many in the party, including two Lib Dem ministers in the Coalition — Norman Lamb MP (Department of Health) and Steve Webb MP (Department for Work and Pensions) — who have co-authored the following response.

lamb and webb

When we read the article posted on Lib Dem Voice on Wednesday by Matt, setting out very personally the distressing and painful experiences he has faced over the past few years in trying to access the welfare and health support he needs, we felt it was important that we respond properly to what he had said.

As Liberal Democrats, we instinctively understand that divisive rhetoric is both unhelpful and inaccurate, and for both of these reasons we should all remain constantly vigilant in challenging those who use this type of language to denigrate any member of our society. We believe in standing up for the vulnerable and providing support to those who are facing personal difficulties in their lives.

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb MP writes…The Better Care promise – driving up standards of care across our NHS

By Norman Lamb MP | Fri 19th July 2013 - 11:59 am

It is clear that no single institution has done more to improve people’s lives than the NHS, and its generosity and expertise is something of which we are rightly proud. Yet events which have come to light, such as the abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View or the grave neglect of patients at Stafford Hospital, have highlighted serious problems within our health service.

This week in particular we have seen the publication of two key independent reviews on NHS care, both of which highlight areas in need of urgent improvement. The outcome of the review by Baroness Neuberger …

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Matthew Donnelly

Opinion: The feeling’s mutual, isn’t it?

By Matthew Donnelly | Tue 16th July 2013 - 4:35 pm

The Coalition are feeling mutual love at the moment. A love for public service mutuals that is. A multiplicity of support programmes, funds and policy initiatives have been initiated since 2010 (although the process was technically kickstarted under New Labour), in the hope that a ‘mutual revolution’ will envelope public services and unleash a wave of latent entrepreneurialism from frontline workers. Francis Maude has expressed the rather utopian aspiration that by 2015, 1 million public sector workers will be working in one of these new public service mutuals.

On the face of it, what’s not to like about a …

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb MP writes…Tackling Mental Health stigma and discrimination: the NHS 65 years on

By Norman Lamb MP | Fri 5th July 2013 - 2:29 pm

65 years ago today, the foundations of our modern National Health Service were laid based on the recommendations of a Liberal, William Beveridge. The founding principle that our NHS should always be free at the point of use endures today. The NHS now treats around a million people every 36 hours, with 300 million GP appointments each year. It is a national institution of which we are rightly proud.

However, the National Health Service is far from perfect. Significant changes are needed to cope with the challenges faced by the fact that people are living longer, and are living with an …

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb MP writes: Ensuring transparency and accountability in the Health Service

By Norman Lamb MP | Thu 4th July 2013 - 10:56 am

In recent months we have seen some shocking examples of failures of care within the health service. Tragic events such as those which occurred at the Mid-Staffordshire Hospital and the Winterbourne View Hospital have demonstrated a desperate need to ensure that people are held to account when awful things happen across the NHS and care services.

It is clear that we need to restore trust in health and care services. When a serious failing occurs it is simply unacceptable for patients and their families to be left in the dark or to feel that those responsible have not had to face …

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NewsHound

LibLink…Norman Lamb: What can we do to improve care in the home?

By NewsHound | Wed 3rd July 2013 - 12:30 pm

We’ve seen some awful stories in the media over the last few weeks about poor standards of home care. Norman Lamb has been writing in the Guardian about what the Government can do to ensure that everyone has good quality care.

First he outlines the problems:

One of the most common complaints I come across is where care is carried out by the clock. Carers will come to the house and have a time slot of around 15 minutes to get everything done and be off to the next appointment. But 15 minutes may not be enough to do what is needed.

…

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Caron Lindsay

Helena Morrissey’s Report: No excuses – we have to do what she says and do it well

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 14th June 2013 - 8:33 am

helena morrissey reportMy co-editor Stephen Tall has already published his first thoughts and a follow up post outlining where praise is due, which I agree with pretty much entirely. I’ve now emerged from my trip to London and subsequent burial under a pile of things that need to be stuffed into envelopes to add a few random thoughts of my own.

“A missed opportunity”

Norman Lamb started to draw up procedures for dealing with harassment in 2003. This work was never completed. Morrissey says:

Lamb is unsure why the drafted procedures were

…

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Stephen Tall

Welfare reform: what should the Lib Dems do?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 8th April 2013 - 11:00 am

This much I think I know… Cuts to the overall welfare budget are inescapable: it accounts for too large a chunk of of public spending for it to be immune — certainly if the NHS, schools and overseas aid budgets are to be protected at the same time as spending is reduced.

These cuts would be happening whichever party was in power, though doubtless the precise methods would differ. The IFS’s verdict in 2010 on what they termed Labour’s “fiscal drift” was stark: “By the eve of the financial crisis … the UK one of the largest structural …

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Caron Lindsay

Norman Lamb, Newsnight and Jeremy Paxman’s bedpan

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th March 2013 - 11:54 am

Liberal Democrat Health Minister Norman Lamb wrote about the Government’s response to the Francis Report for this site yesterday. Later he was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. Paxman started by asking how long it would take before the NHS is fit for purpose.

Norman replied:

We have to recognise that a lot of fantastic work goes on in the NHS

Most people who work in health and care do so because they want to care for people

We shouldn’t denigrate NHS because of what’s happened in this one report, but anyone who cares passionately about the NHS has to face up the

…

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb: another step forward on parity of esteem for mental health

By Norman Lamb MP | Fri 14th December 2012 - 4:21 pm

From April 2014, for the first time, people who need mental health services will be able to choose where they receive their care.

In 2008, the Labour government gave patients the legal right to choose who provides their care when referred by a GP. Scandalously, however, that right was specifically denied to mental health service users – a clear, institutionalised bias against mental health services and service users who had to take what they are given, whether they like it or not.

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Tim Purkiss

Opinion: Mental health provision in the NHS – share your experiences

By Tim Purkiss | Wed 12th December 2012 - 10:01 am

After having written previous articles about delegate Sarah Yong’s motion on under provision in mental health, my own experiences with mental health, and the recent statements by Ed Miliband regarding Labour’s policy on mental health,  I want to add a final footnote to the series.

It is clear from comments on this website that Liberal

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