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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I wish that I did not need to speak at this point because I am really quite torn. I know how sincerely all those who have spoken feel about this amendment, and about emphasising the need to promote mental illness as having the same parity as physical illness. At the same time, I know how sincere the noble Earl is, and therefore it is difficult not to accept what he has said and the promises he has made. None the less, the comment made by my noble friend Lord Walton is the one that has affected me most: what is the key objection to putting these two words at the front of the Bill to signify that mental illness is as important in its management as physical illness? In my professional life I have dealt with physical illness, but I was always deeply affected whenever I had a patient suffering from postpartum depression or antenatal anxieties and sometimes psychosis; they were the most difficult to deal with. I would then have to seek the assistance of my psychiatrist colleagues.