08.09.15
Norman Lamb to chair new mental health commission
Norman Lamb MP, the former minister for community and social care, has been appointed chair of a new West Midlands commission on mental health.
The commission proposal was announced in July when the emerging West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) put forward plans to establish three major independent commissions to help shape the future of the region.
Lamb will now lead a panel constituted of NHS England’s national clinical director for mental health, Geraldine Strathdee, and Public Health England director of health and wellbeing, Kevin Fenton.
The Lib Dem MP, who built up a good reputation in the sector with his focus on mental health issues and ‘parity of esteem’ while in government, said: “This is a really interesting and exciting opportunity to make a difference for those with mental ill-health. It’s brilliant that local authorities in the West Midlands have taken this initiative.”
The WMCA said in a statement to NHE: “Local authority chief executives from the region had identified that poor mental health and wellbeing is a significant driver of demand for public services and has a negative impact on the economy.”
In its statement of intent, released on 6 July, the combined authority said the commission would be responsible for assessing the scale of mental health problems in the region and their cost and impact across the whole system.
The panel would also be responsible for examining best practice elsewhere, both nationally and internationally, in health and other service areas.
This best practice would then be examined in regards to the relative costs and benefits of its application in the West Midlands, later informing new pilot ways to test its effectiveness.
Finally it would also make recommendations on how its findings can be taken forward to reform further public services in the region.
It said in its statement: “We do not believe it is possible to rise to the challenge of reforming our public services without looking properly at the role mental health plays in driving demand for those services. More than that, we believe that tackling mental health will enable us to reduce our spending in the long run.
“Poor mental health is the root cause of many of our social and economic problems as well as the size of the benefit budget. All our work with the police, courts and prisons, in families, domestic violence and with children in care tells us that tackling mental health problems as and when they occur is vital to the effective reform of public services and the fulfilment of our wider economic objectives.”
The new governance structure covers services in Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.