To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make it his policy, where health authority assessments of the local needs of chronic severely mentally ill patients discharged since 1955 from mental illness hospitals have not been made, as distinct from existing patients' needs, to withhold approval of further reductions in mental hospital beds and of plans for the closure of such hospitals until assessments of their needs have been made and alternative services to meet such needs provided.

We anticipate that the comprehensive mental illness services being developed by district health authorities, in accordance with current policy, will reflect the total range of local needs, including the need for hospital in-patient care on a short or longer term basis as well as alternative forms of care.