GMWS Welcomes Parliamentary Discussion On Mental Health Issues
The Gibraltar Mental Welfare Society says it "welcomes" the recent parliamentary discussion on mental health issues.
A statement from the Gibraltar Mental Welfare Society follows below:
Both the Shadow Minister for Health, Mr Eliott Phillips, and Ms Hassan Nahon of Together Gibraltar, put a number of questions to Mr Balban, the Minister for Health. When asked once again why there had been such a long delay in the publication of the 2019 Mental Health Board Report, Minister Balban replied that the report had preceded his time as Minister for Health. We infer from this that the Report should have been laid before Parliament by his predecessor. However, since this did not happen, we believe that Minister Balban could then have done so himself, long before Covid 19 hit us in March 2020, which is given as another reason for the delay in publication. When asked when the 2020 Mental Health Board Report would be laid before Parliament, Minister Balban replied that this would be done “in due course”. A very disappointing answer when he has had the report for over three months already.
When asked why the Mental Health Audit, carried out by Public Health England, had still not been published, more than a year on, Minister Balban said “the audit alludes to points that require further clarification”. A response which we find baffling since it seems to preclude the publishing of said document. Minister Balban went on to say that the Audit stated that “no formal mental health budget could be identified” and that this was not the case. In response to this, Mr Clinton, Shadow Minister for the Economy, confirmed that he had not been able to find a separate budget for mental health provision either. Minister Balban went on to say that service users and “mental health organisations” had contributed to the audit as if suggesting that this made the audit in some way unreliable. He went on to say “there are other matters in the audit that we don’t agree with”. For this reason he said that there were ongoing discussions with Public Health England.
The GMWS wonders what to make of all this. Is the Minister for Health saying that the audit is not accurate and that is why it hasn’t been published? Is the Minister saying that Public Health England hasn’t produced a reliable audit? These are serious concerns, indeed. The GMWS considers that the best thing to do would be to publish the report and then publicly challenge any assertions it makes which the Government considers to be inaccurate.
The GMWS feels more strongly than ever that both the 2020 Mental Health Board report and the 2019 Mental Health Audit need to be published without further delay. It isn’t a question of blaming any one political party for the flaws in the present mental health provision because there are historical issues we are still contending with. But we need an honest acknowledgement on the part of those in authority that the system isn’t working nearly as well as they claim it to be. The GMWS is regularly approached by service users who are very unhappy with the present system and who do not feel they are being served at all well by it.
The GMWS welcomes the fact that we live in a society which commissions reports and audits on mental health but they are not of best use if they are not published promptly and acted on swiftly.
