December 2018
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This seminar discussed the next steps for mental health services in England, including allocating funding, improving quality of care and reducing inefficiencies.
Delegates assessed priorities for utilising the £2bn funding boost announced for mental health services in the 2018 Budget, which included allocations to allow mental health support to be available in every large A&E department and allocations for more mental health ambulances.
Sessions considered latest thinking on how the Government’s goal of achieving parity of esteem between mental and physical health can be achieved through the now published NHS Long Term Plan.
Discussion reflected the announcement from the Prime Minister on World Mental Health Day of the appointment of the UK’s first Minister for Suicide Prevention - as well as the launch by UK Research and Innovation of eight new Mental Health Networks, which will look into health inequalities, social isolation, youth and student mental health and domestic and sexual violence.
Attendees also discussed the steps that need to be taken to improve the quality of care and deliver on the nearly £1bn of potential efficiency savings that could be made by 2020/21 across four main areas - including staff, technology, contract specification and delivery - identified in Lord Carter’s review into unwarranted variations in mental health and community health services.
Following the Government’s response to the Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper consultation, which set out steps to implement Designated Senior Leads for mental health in schools and colleges, Mental Health Support Teams and a four-week waiting time standard to be piloted in areas across England - as well as the National Audit Office report, which found that the Government has a significant way to go in achieving its ambitions for children and young people’s mental health services, due to a lack of data and slow progress on workforce expansion - delegates discussed how the Government’s ambitions to transform children and young people’s mental health provision can be achieved.
Further sessions assessed the priorities for the mental health workforce and progress on the implementation of the mental health workforce plan for England.
