My Lords, we know that the 18 to 25 year-olds have many of the same complex problems as the under-18s and, as the Minister has said, they need similar holistic wraparound care, although that is not necessarily yet in place. However, Dr Levy’s review had a narrower remit than mine, focused on quality improvement rather than the model of care, so as a next step would the Minister agree to ask departmental and NHSE colleagues to convene a group, which should include independent experts, representatives of professional groups and representatives of the new children’s and young people’s services as well as service users, to consider how we best understand and, importantly, improve clinical outcomes for this group of young adults?
The “NHS’s conclusions” are not the conclusions of the whole body of doctors and nurses and specialists that make it up. If international health bodies have disagreed with the Cass Review, and specialists within the NHS have also disagreed with it, that doesn’t really paint a unified position of “the NHS” does it? This decision is painfully political and clearly up for debate, and the people in charge have made a political decision to take such an aggressively cautious position as to effectively fall entirely on one side of the argument.
Well hopefully it gets fixed then. We should be trusting the scientists who are qualified and have done impartial studies instead of wrapping this issue up in philosophical positions