Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department intends to ringfence mental health budgets in the NHS.
The Department has no such plans.
The Department does not generally ringfence budgets within the National Health Service. Clinicians in clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), who know their patients, have the autonomy to make decisions about the health services that best meet the health needs of their local population. They do this based on patient needs and clinical evidence.
The NHS Operational Planning and Contracting Guidance applies to CCGs and sets out specific requirements, including commissioning mental health services that meet the needs of local populations. This guidance also requires CCGs and NHS England specialised commissioning hubs to increase their spend on mental health services by a greater amount than the growth in their overall programme allocation.