Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: Mental Health services

(asked on 6th June 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2018 to Question 147893, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of ring-fencing mental health funding to ensure that people affected by Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and wider mental health illnesses can access mental health treatment.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 11th June 2018

The Department does not generally ring-fence budgets within the National Health Service. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 gave clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) the autonomy to make decisions about the health services that best meet the health needs of their population based on local evidence of patient need.

No assessment has been made on the potential merits of ring-fencing mental health funding to ensure that people affected by Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and wider mental health illnesses can access mental health treatment.

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme began in 2008 and has transformed treatment of adult anxiety disorders and depression in England. Over 900,000 people now access IAPT services each year, and the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health has pledged to expand services further to see 1.5 million people treated for mental health problems every year by 2020/21 alongside improving quality. IAPT practitioners are able to treat common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety which people with FASD may present with.

Reticulating Splines