Government provides details of mental health capital boost

Further details were given this week on the funding that was previously announced in the 2021 spending review. Some £7m will support the provision of up to 100 new mental health ambulances, while the remaining £143m will deliver new and upgraded crisis facilities and assessment centres.

Projects include more than 30 schemes to provide crisis cafes, crisis houses and other safe spaces  and more than 20 new or improved health-based places of safety for people detained by the police.  In total, the government said the 150 schemes supported its commitment to level up mental health and wellbeing across the country.

It said the funding built on existing plans to provide ‘at least £2.3bn of additional funding a year by April 2024’ to expand and transform mental health services in England. It also pointed to its commitment to increase mental health spending to 8.9% of all NHS funding.

NHS mental health director Claire Murdoch (pictured) said the NHS was on track to deliver its NHS long-term plan commitment to boost mental health spending. ‘As well as expanding capacity to meet record demand, the NHS is transforming mental health services to help people get more appropriate care when they contact services,’ she said. ‘And this investment will see specialist mental health ambulances deployed, new crisis cafes opened, and existing facilities modernised, to deliver urgent and emergency mental health care to more people who need it.’

Dr Adrian James, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, welcomed the renewed commitment to mental health services. ‘Having reached record levels of referrals in the past year, the pressure on crisis care is immense,’ he said. ‘The concept of tailored emergency care is positive, and we’re pleased to see the investment of 100 new specialist mental health ambulances, staffed by both physical and mental healthcare professionals.’

He added that the funding would ‘go some way in easing system pressures’, but the cost-of-living crisis meant demand for mental health services would continue to rise.

Sean Duggan, chief executive of the NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network agreed that support for expanding crisis services was helpful. ‘[But] what mental health leaders most want to see is the publication of the long-awaited, cross-government plan for mental health. Especially while the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite, we need the focus across Whitehall to be on how we generate policies in a way that prevent people becoming acutely unwell in the first place.’