Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the implications for his Department's policies are of the Crisp Commission Report on mental health; and if he will make a statement.

As a result of the recommendations from the Crisp Commission and the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, the Government set a national ambition in April 2016 to eliminate inappropriate out of area placements (OAPs) for adult acute inpatient care by 2020/21.

To ensure progress towards this ambition in 2016/17, the Department asked that areas put in place local action plans to achieve reductions in OAPs during 2016/17. NHS England will seek assurance that plans are in place, as well as demonstrable reductions, through the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework. In addition, NHS Improvement will ensure best practice is shared more widely.

On the wider Crisp Commission recommendations, NHS England is working with the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) to develop an evidence-based treatment pathway for adult acute mental health care (including older adults), covering both inpatient and community settings from referral through to discharge, so that adult acute inpatient care can be used effectively for patients who need it. A national quality assessment and improvement scheme developed by the RCPsych will be launched during 2017/18, with the aim of improving acute care to meet the pathway standards during 2018/19.

NHS England has committed to publish a formal response to the Commission’s report shortly.