Written question asked by Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 25 October 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 27 October 2005. It was answered by Liam Byrne (Labour) on Monday, 7 November 2005 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Mental Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps her Department has taken to ensure that local protocols and pathways are established to deliver services to people who have a learning disability with mental health problems.

Answer: Adults with disabilities, including those with learning disabilities, are covered by the mental health national service framework (NSF) in respect of their mental health problems.““Valuing People: A New Strategy for Learning Disability for the 21st Century”” (2001), the first White Paper for people with learning disabilities for 30 years, requires clear local protocols to be in place for collaboration between specialist learning disability services and specialist mental health services.In order to promote the development of such local protocols, a learning disabilities dimension was added to the NSF local implementation planning group in 2002 and again in 2004.The National Institute for Mental Health in England and the valuing people support team published a service improvement toolkit called ““Green Light: How Good Are Your Mental Health Services for People with Learning Disabilities?”” in 2004. This guidance is designed to help local services to work together to ensure that the delivery of the NSF is working for people with mental health problems who also have a learning disability.

Secondary information