A National Audit Office report published today has shown that The Department of Health (DH) and NHS England are beginning to work on improving access to mental health services across the UK, although they say there is still a lot of progress to be made.
NAO explained in their report that improving care for people with mental health problems depends on action by local organisations working together, but the full cost of implementing the new access and waiting time standards isn’t fully understood at this stage.
Speaking about their progress Amyas Morse, Head of the National Audit Office, commented: “The Department of Health has recognised that mental health has been treated as a poor relation relative to other health needs for many years. This recognition, the goal of ‘parity of esteem’ and the setting of new standards for access and waiting times are all bold and impressive steps forward.
“It is important that these steps are supported by implementation in a reasonable timescale if they are not to be a cause for disillusionment, and this looks challenging in current conditions.”
DH estimate that in order to achieve their first three objectives; improving access to psychological therapies (IAPT), early intervention in psychosis and liaison psychiatry services they will require £160 million more than the estimated £663 million that CCG’s spent on these services in 2014-15.
Subsequent indicative analysis around these figures has shown that the extra £160million quoted by the Department of Health may still fall short of what is required to implement these services effectively.
The work comes after the government and the NHS pledged to put mental health provision on a par with physical health services.
In October 2014, the Department and NHS England set a first set of standards for the access to mental health services that people should expect and how long they should have to wait for treatment.
Today’s NAO report illustrated that in spite of the £120 million of additional government funding over the two years 2014-15 and 2015-16 most of the cost of implementing the new access and waiting time standards will be met from CCG’s existing budgets.
The report concludes that full information does not exist to show how far the NHS is from meeting the access and waiting time standards and states that “it is clear that meeting the standards will be a very significant challenge.”
Although the access and waiting times for IAPT are already being met figures show that performance varies across different areas, with a survey of acute hospitals in July 2015 illustrating only 7% have the level of service NHS England considers will be beneficial to patient.
NAO’s report states that although the Department of Health and NHS England are making progress, particularly in setting priorities and national leadership, “significant risks to implementing the access and waiting times programme remain.”
