NHS Funding: Mental Health Services

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her question on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in sending him and his family our support at this difficult time.

The noble Baroness has asked a very important question. The mental health budget will increase by £2.3 billion by 2023-24, growing faster than the wider budget. We are using transparency to drive improvements. The mental health dashboard shows that last year, for the first time, all CCGs met the mental health investment standard, which is an encouraging sign. This builds on the work done in the five-year forward view, which delivered real improvements for patients. It delivered £247 million for liaison psychiatry, £290 million for perinatal services and £400 million for crisis resolution and home treatment teams. However, we will not rest there. The long-term plan will deliver much more for patients, including 345,000 more children and young patients to receive specialist support services. This is the ambition that we have and the ambition that we will deliver.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the additional money and note my interest as a trustee of a mental health service for adolescents. Can the Minister assure me that highly experienced clinicians will be retained to provide vital supervision for the new people coming in at the front line—for instance, in schools? Is she concerned that there is a 1% decline in the trend for the number of child and adolescent psychiatrists, for example? Is it not crucial that we have highly experienced clinicians to supervise the new people whom the Government have in development?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Earl is absolutely right that it is essential not only that we recruit new psychiatrists and mental health specialists to support the ambitions of the long-term plan—we have set out an ambitious plan to do so, intending to recruit 8,000 new specialists—but that we retain those within the system, who are doing an outstanding job in difficult circumstances. NHS Improvement is working with mental health trusts across the country to give them the tools that they need to do so, and I am encouraged by the progress that they have made so far.