Mental health funding gap widens further - Mind responds
Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, responds to the Kings Fund report on mental health funding.
This report highlights the crucial importance of funding and staffing in transforming mental health services. While spend on mental health trusts isn’t the full picture, it is a worrying indication of the enormous challenge faced. After years of underfunding and neglect, and at a time of increasing demand as more and more people seek help, we need to see continued momentum around improving mental health services.
The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, launched in 2016, came with a commitment by the NHS to spend £1billion more on mental health services by 2020-21. Evidence suggests that it is materialising but we know there are concerns about how it is reaching the frontline. Local commissioners are now required to report their spend on mental health so transparency around funding should improve – it’s up to the rest of us to use this data to hold the system to account and make sure the money gets where it needs to be.
This report also reiterates the huge challenges around workforce planning. Mental health services are heavily reliant on their staff, who do a fantastic job and can make all the difference to the experience of people under their care. But huge gaps in the workforce will take years to fill, which puts enormous pressure on the current workforce and means that two-thirds of people with mental health problems get no help or support at all.
Mental health has been under-resourced for too long, with dire consequences for people with mental health problems. If people don’t get the help they need, when they need it, they are likely to become more unwell and need more intensive – and expensive – support further down the line. The five-year plan is the opportunity to get this right, to start building the kind of NHS mental health services that will carry us into the future and make sure everyone with a mental health problem gets the help and support they need.
