Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities in managing the increase in mental ill health.

Public Health England (PHE) provides a variety of resources to support local authorities in managing the increase in mental ill health.

PHE also provides local government with data on mental health to local authority level via our National Mental Health Intelligence Service. This can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-data-and-analysis-a-guide-for-health-professionals

A dedicated profiling tool on our PHE fingertips platform is available at the following link:

http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/

PHE published a suite of evidence for local areas and local government in August 2017 at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevention-concordat-for-better-mental-health-consensus-statement

This includes work on Commissioning Cost Effective Interventions at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-services-cost-effective-commissioning

These resources give local authorities the evidence they need to take action for mental health promotion and prevention.

PHE provides support to local areas through its Prevention Concordat for Better Mental Health and through the work of the nine PHE local centres who support local authorities in their local areas. To date, over 70 national organisations and 70 local authorities have signed up to the Prevention Concordat programme. The target is to achieve full sign up of all local areas by the end of 2020/21. This work helps support local government in their strategic planning and delivery of mental health work as part of their overall work on improving the health and wellbeing of their local population.

On 7 October 2019, PHE also launched a new national resource for the public to help them look after their own mental health and support others, Every Mind Matters. This can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/

We are supporting the recruitment of mental health social workers in local authorities and the NHS through the Think Ahead initiative. In addition, the New Roles in mental health social work group, led by Health Education England and Skills for Care, is working to develop the future social work and social care workforce with local authorities.

NHS England has developed community mental health services framework which aims to deliver greater integration with other services that impact on mental health and wellbeing outcomes - including primary care, general practitioners, social care, education, housing and third sector services. This can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/the-community-mental-health-framework-for-adults-and-older-adults/