Baroness Browning (Con)

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on the particular point that she raises about eating disorders in her amendment and on a more general point. In an earlier debate, I tried to make the case that people being diagnosed with autism by clinicians should be seen by clinicians who specialise in autism. I was reminded of this very much when the Minister, responding to an earlier amendment this afternoon, talked about parity of esteem in the health service between the physical health support provided and that for mental health. In the world of physical health, if you were to see an orthopaedic consultant, you would not necessarily see the same consultant, depending on the condition that you had. The same applies today with cardiology, whereby cardiologists now have more specialisms within that and you would therefore see the appropriate person. As raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, the facilities that go along with such specialised treatment and assessment are very important. I put it to the Minister, prompted by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and by the Minister’s own words, that it really is about time that, with regard to mental health as a generic term, whatever the condition, we stop—as they did even within my lifetime—locking people up in some old Victorian institution where they all get the same treatment, facilities and so on. Today, with our increased knowledge of mental health and of medication for mental health, and with the increased number of specialisms that we are now aware of, particularly around eating disorders, it is really about time, if there is truly to be parity of esteem, that mental health is treated as physical health is treated, and that the specialisms that occur and the specialists there to work within those specialisms are given weight within legislation so that facilities and specialists can be provided—because we know that they are not. At the heart of the Bill before us is the fact that we are taking autism and learning disabilities out of the Mental Health Act 1983, in which they were all treated the same—lumped in together and treated by the same clinicians, whether they had a specialism in that area or not. This is a real opportunity for the Minister and the Government to make sure that there is true parity of esteem and that conditions such as eating disorders are respected and treated in the way in which they should be.