Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to scale and spread effective community-based mental health support models through the forthcoming Mental Health Strategy.

We are developing a new cross-Government Mental Health Strategy for England, to be published later this year. We have launched a Call for Evidence to inform the strategy, which closes on 10 July. The Call for Evidence seeks practical, implementation-focused evidence on how to deliver the shift from hospital to community and from treatment to prevention. The Call for Evidence invites views on how effective community-based models can be designed and scaled across different local areas, and what is needed to implement these models successfully in practice.

We are also piloting six community-based mental health centres, which bring together services to provide open-access, joined-up support closer to home, improve continuity of care, and reduce pressure on inpatient services. As set out in our response to the Health and Social Care Committee in March this year, these pilots are being evaluated to assess impacts on access, patient experience, and system pressures. Our response to the Health and Social Care Committee can be found at the following link:

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/53333/documents/298391/default/

This evidence will directly inform the development of the Mental Health Strategy and our approach to scaling and spreading effective community-based models.