Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the cost effectiveness of providing 24-hour mental health support to A&E departments.

In 2014, the Royal College of Psychiatrists made an assessment of the national provision of liaison psychiatry, the services that provide mental health support to Emergency Departments. This followed a commitment that the College made in the mental health Crisis Care Concordat.

The Government’s Mandate to NHS England states that access to crisis services, for an individual must be “at all times as accessible, responsive and as high quality as other health emergency services. This includes ensuring the provision of adequate liaison psychiatry services in emergency departments.”

NHS England has adopted these aims in Putting Patients First, its business plan for 2014/15 – 2016/17, and will take them forward as part of its Parity of Esteem programme. This year, £30 million investment is to be targeted on effective models of liaison psychiatry in a greater number of acute hospitals.

Achieving better access to mental health services by 2020 set the expectation that, by 2020, all acute trusts will have in place liaison mental health services for all ages appropriate to the size, acuity and specialty of the hospital.