The government will impose new standards on mental health providers to force them to improve crisis care for patients across the country, health minister Norman Lamb has said.

Speaking at the Liberal Democrat conference, Mr Lamb said crisis care was the “most extreme” example of a disparity between physical and mental healthcare.

He contrasted the “substantial service” patients get from accident and emergency departments with local crisis care services.

“If you have a crisis in mental health the position is wholly different to that in physical health. In some areas it is good; in some it is pretty awful,” he said.

He gave one example of a patient who called a mental health crisis hotline and received no answer. “Just imagine the scandal if someone rang A&E and got no answer,” he told delegates.

Mr Lamb said there needed to be a “clear standard about what crisis mental health services should be like in every part of the country.”

He said the government would work to get all providers to implement this and described it as a “real priority to address the massive shortfall in crisis mental health”.

He also hinted at plans to ban the use of “deliberate face down restraint” in mental health, saying: “I believe the deliberate use of face down restraint, where someone’s face is held to the floor for a long period of time, has no place on a modern civilised mental health service.”

He said it would take time change the practice and culture, adding that the training of staff was “critical”.

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