Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) his Department and (b) the NHS gives mental health parity of esteem with physical health.

We continue to take mental health as seriously as physical health and to hold the National Health Service to account for achieving the objectives set out in the NHS Mandate, ensuring that mental and physical health conditions are given equal priority. The Mandate makes clear that ‘everyone who needs it should have timely access to evidence-based services’.

We have legislated for parity of esteem between mental and physical health via the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

We have already expanded our world-leading psychological therapy services and we have invested over £120 million in order to introduce for the first time waiting times standards for mental health services from April 2015 – a very significant milestone on the road to parity. Next year we will invest £15 million into improving the provision of places of safety, in order to ensure that people in crisis receive assessments in appropriate premises, and not in police custody.

We have made clear that each clinical commissioning group’s (CCG) spending on Mental Health should increase in real terms.

NHS England’s published planning guidance for 2015/16 for commissioners made the expectation clear that each CCGs spend on mental health services in 2015/16 should increase in real terms, and grow by at least the same percentage as each CCG’s allocation increase.

We will monitor this closely to ensure this happens.