Funds needed to relieve unsustainable pressure on mental health services

The report – No wrong door – claims that patients and service users are routinely struggling to access urgent and routine care, with a ‘dearth of investment’ meaning that staff and services are stretched to capacity and under unsustainable pressure.

Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor said demand was outstripping supply and rising at a rapid rate. ‘Estimates from the Centre for Mental Health suggest that 10 million people will need extra help for their mental health as a direct result of the pandemic, and 1.5 million of those will be children,’ he said.  With many people only now coming forward for help, the explosion in demand set against current levels of investment and workforce capacity means the provision of adequate care is becoming quickly unsustainable.’

He added that pressure had a domino effect on the wider NHS and that demand was likely to increase with the rising cost of living. ‘Services are getting closer than ever to breaking point,’ he added.

The organisations are calling for the government to produce a comprehensive 10-year plan and to provide for a fully costed mental health workforce as part of its promised long-term workforce plan.

The report highlights earlier estimates that funding for mental health could have to rise to as much as £27bn by 2033/34 – more than doubling pre-pandemic spending levels. However, with the pandemic having increased mental health needs and current levels of inflation, the actual amount needed is likely to be even higher.

Austerity policies need to end, the report says, as they lead to the erosion of early help and support. This means people are left until they hit crisis point before they gain access to support, which is in turn more costly.

The mental health investment standard aims to increase spending on mental health services at a higher rate than growth in other services. However, the report argues that the current focus remains very heavily on physical health and the elective backlog.

‘Sufficient investment would enable mental health, autism and learning disability services across England to look beyond the here and now and plan for the next decade,’ the report said. However, funding was also needed in local authority social services, in public health, in housing and in youth services to ensure mental health support was holistic and effective.

Mental health services also face severe challenges on workforce with nearly a quarter of the current 132,000 NHS vacancies within mental health and a tenth of consultant psychiatrist posts vacant during 2021.

The report sets out a 10-point vision for how mental health should look in 10 years’ time including much greater reliance on prevention, early intervention and whole-person care.