Six of England’s leading health organisations have joined forces to call for mental care to become a national priority.
Centre for Mental Health, the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Network, Mind, Rethink Mental Illness and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have united to produce a plan for what the Government should do in its first 100 days of the new Parliament to improve the lives of people with mental health problems.
The report - Improving England’s Mental Health: The First 100 Days and Beyond - sets out a number of practical actions the new Government should take to ensure mental and physical health are valued equally.
The five key areas for consideration are:
- Ensure fair funding for mental health - a commitment in the July emergency budget, and the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) later in the year, to increase investment in mental health services
- Commit to take forward the recommendations of the recently published Children and Young People Mental Health Taskforce report, Future in Mind
- Improve physical health care for people with mental health problems, with a particular focus on Public Health England’s priorities of obesity, smoking, and harmful drinking
- Commit to extending Time to Change funding over the five years of this Parliament, with better employment support nationwide for jobseekers; plus urgently review the effectiveness of the use of benefit conditions among people with mental health problems.
- Enable better access to mental health services, consulting on proposals to introduce new national waiting time guarantees for mental health services.
Speaking jointly, the leaders of the organisations welcomed government plans to improve access to mental health services over the next five years, laid out in this week’s Queen’s Speech.
‘These first 100 days represent a valuable opportunity for the Government to meaningfully demonstrate its commitment to improving the lives of people with mental health problems,’ they said.
‘Our plan sets out a range of actions needed to make that happen, of which increased investment will be vital.
'The chancellor, George Osborne, set out in the March budget a commitment to increase funding for mental health services for children and new mothers by £1.25bn over the Parliament. The upcoming emergency budget is a golden opportunity for this Government to demonstrate its commitment by re-pledging that much needed investment in mental health services.’
