Mental Health Services: Waiting Lists

(asked on 27th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the statement in the NHS Long Term Plan that four-week waiting times for adult and older adult community mental health teams including for eating disorders will be tested with selected local areas, what the timetable is for those targets to be introduced; and whether funding will be allocated to areas to support these tests.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 4th April 2019

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to “test four-week waiting times for adult and older adult community mental health teams, with selected local areas”.

The ‘Clinically-led Review of NHS Access Standards’ Interim Report, published in March 2019, states that NHS England will test four-week waiting times for adult and older adult community mental health teams with selected local areas. As part of this work, the report states that NHS England will “consider the interfaces with specialist community mental health services, particularly where there is an existing evidence base for rapid direct access, such as adult eating disorder services, or early intervention in psychosis services, for which there is already a national access and waiting time standard in place.”

The interim report sets out the initial proposals for testing changes to access standards in mental health services, cancer care, elective care and urgent and emergency care. The proposals will be field tested at a selection of pilot sites across England, before wider implementation. The information gathered through field testing and engagement will inform final recommendations from this Review, and ahead of full implementation beginning spring 2020.

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