Mental Health Services
(asked on 18th December 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will introduce additional safeguards for patients assessed as being at higher risk of harm following discharge from mental health inpatient wards.
The national ambition is for all mental health trusts to ensure 80% of patients discharged from adult acute mental health inpatient settings are followed up within 72 hours, and is intended to bring focus not just to the timeliness of follow-up, but also to the quality of pre and post-discharge care and safety planning and support. NHS England routinely monitors performance against this target at an integrated care board (ICB) level, which is subject to the same quality and performance oversight as other national targets.
This expectation is reinforced through national statutory guidance on Discharge from mental health inpatient settings, and data on performance is also published on a monthly basis, with 75% of discharges in October 2025 meeting the ambition. Over 40% of ICBs met or exceeded the target in October 2025. Further information on the Discharge from mental health inpatient settings guidance and the monthly data is available respectively, at the following two links:
The timeliness of follow-up support is linked to the capacity of community teams and pathways between inpatient and community services which vary across the country. Mental health services are facing significant pressures with more people being seen than ever before. Ongoing improvements in community mental healthcare and work to localise and realign inpatient mental health care within ICBs is expected to improve the national picture.
While the central metric of the new standard focuses on the timeliness of follow up, the overarching expectation is that this will incentivise focus on overall quality of discharge planning and support. This is expected to have a direct impact on patient experience as well as outcomes. The Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 includes the expectation that plans should be set out for the consistent and systematic use of the mental health Urgent and Emergency Care Action Cards in all relevant settings, namely acute settings, and delivery of the 10 high-impact actions for mental health discharges to support flow through all mental health, including child and adolescent mental health, and learning disability and autism pathways. Further information on the Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 and mental health discharges is available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/