MP CHALLENGES MINISTER ON MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 29th Jun 2004

Sue Doughty MP has challenged the government over the lack of funding for mental health care in her constituency.

During the debate following the government statement on improvements to NHS services she demanded to know what hope of improvement to funding and resources there would be in Guildford but received a disappointing response from the Minister. Afterwards Sue said:

"Although local psychiatric services are doing what they can, mental health services are the poor relation of the NHS. The response from the minister today indicated that psychiatric services scarcely show on his radar. This is unacceptable when we know that up to 1 in 4 of the population will need support for mental illness or depression at some time in their lives."