Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government who is responsible for the implementation of the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat; what procedures are in place if action plans are insufficient; and who is responsible for improving the quality of action plans that are judged to be insufficient.

The implementation of Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat action plans is a matter for local areas, each of which has signed a declaration stating that local police, health, local government and other partners will be jointly responsible for improving crisis care for people with mental health needs in their areas.

By May this year, every area in England had published a local crisis care concordat action plan. Before publication, these were each reviewed jointly by the Department and the mental health charity Mind, to make sure that plans were of sufficient quality. In particular, the Department expected plans to address the specific requirements for crisis services set out in NHS England’s The Forward View Into Action: Planning for 2015/16. The Department and Mind worked closely with local areas to help them make refinements and improvements to their draft plans before publication. These action plans are all considered subject to continual review and improvement, and Mind is currently working with local areas to follow up the suggestions for even further improvements that were made at the time of publication.