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 the new NHS England commissioning model in the provision of highly specialised mental health care focusing on complex and challenging conditions.

All appropriate specialised mental health, learning disability and autism services, including those focusing on complex and challenging conditions, will be managed through a National Health Service-led provider collaborative by 2023/24. These collaboratives are focused on improving care pathways for people who use specialised services and provide care closer to home by investing in community alternatives. There are currently 48 active collaboratives.

This model brings together commissioning skills, experts by experience, clinical leaders and provider organisations. NHS England and NHS Improvement remain accountable for commissioning specialised services and delegate specific commissioning responsibilities to the NHS lead provider within each collaborative. Integrated care systems will now develop provider collaboratives for local mental health and learning disability and autism pathways.