asked the Minister for Health the measures he has taken this year to improve conditions for patients in psychiatric hospitals.
Written Answers . - Psychiatric Hospital Patients .
357.
: The provision of services in psychiatric hospitals is primarily a matter for the authorities of those hospitals, the health boards in the case of district mental hospitals and the proprietors in the case of private hospitals. I am not, therefore, in a position to give in specific detail the improvements which have been brought about in the conditions in which patients receive treatment nor indeed to isolate and identify improvements in a time scale as short as a year. In this respect it is relevant to record that approximately £11 million was expended on capital projects by my Department in mental hospitals in the ten years ended on the 31 December 1979.
Improvements in the environment in which psychiatric patients undergo treatment and in the services which they receive is a continuous process. For example, this year I have made available £250,000 in revenue moneys to enable the new facilities, which had been completed, to commence activities. These include hostels, crisis intervention centres and day centres; and I have also made available a sum of £300,000 for schemes to refurbish existing facilities in a number of mental hospitals. In addition £1,067,134 has been provided to meet expenditure on capital projects for such hospitals up to 30 September of this year.
In addition to capital projects which improve the environment in the hospitals for patients, I am aware that health boards have expended revenue resources, which it is impossible to quantify, on improving the quality of the patient life—for example, on diet, clothing and social activities.
The continuous emphasis upon the development of successful community services will lead to a continuing reduction in the numbers going into hospitals and so enable the staffs of hospitals to devote more time and attention to the patients who are in hospital.
The Health (Mental Services) Bill 1980, which has just commenced its Second Reading, with its emphasis upon reducing to the greatest extent possible the restrictions inherent in existing legislation, will continue the process of normalising the treatment of mental illness and will undoubtedly facilitate the earlier and successful rehabilitation of those who need to receive treatment for psychiatric illness.