YORK Central MP Rachael Maskell secured an urgent meeting with the Secretary of State - after raising concerns about mental health services in the city "being scrapped altogether".

The Press revealed this month that a new support service to help people suffering from depression, anxiety and other illnesses has been axed after less than a year.

Ms Maskell, speaking in Parliament, said the primary care mental health service in York "is not being cut - it's being scrapped".

She added that the service was still being rolled out - and due to be launched in a number of other GP practices - when Vale of York CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) told her they did not have the money to keep it going.

Nadine Dorries MP, Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health, said: "I’m happy to help and meet with the honourable lady to talk, no primary care mental health services should be cut with the amount of funding that we’re putting in."

Ms Maskell said: “It is appalling that the funding for mental health in York has been cut to the extent that services are now being scrapped altogether.

"When I met the Minister for Mental Health I informed her how the people of York are being failed time after time with yet more cuts to vital mental health services and urged her to take immediate action."

The Press revealed yesterday how City of York Council had not bid to buy the site of the former Bootham Park mental hospital - but spent more than £139,000 on redevelopment plans for the site with the hope of influencing whoever buys it.

Ms Maskell said: "The Bootham Park Hospital Site which has been up for tender from NHS Property Services gave a unique opportunity to really invest and create first class health facilities, yet the council failed to submit a bid on both occasions, wasting £130,000 on a development consultation plan which was never even submitted."

The council said the money could not be spent on anything other than developing the report for Bootham Park and that buying the site would cost millions.