Norman Lamb – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-02-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what overlap there is between the £1.4 billion funding for improving children and young people’s mental health services referenced in the Answer of 10 February 2016 to Question 25482, the £600 million funding for mental health services referenced in paragraph 1.99 of the Autumn Statement and Spending Review 2015, the almost £1 billion funding to enhance mental health services made in the announcement by the Prime Minister, Prime Minister pledges a revolution in mental health treatment, published on 11 January 2016, and the commitment to spend an extra £1 billion by 2020-21 to improve access to mental health services made in response to the report of the Mental Health Taskforce, 23 February 2016, Official Report, column 153.
Alistair Burt
The £1.4 billion funding for improving children and young people’s mental health services was announced by the previous Coalition Government and consists of £30 million per year for five years announced in the 2014 Autumn Statement to develop community-based eating disorder services and £1.25 billion over five years announced by the then Deputy Prime Minister on 14 March 2015 and included in the Spring Budget for 2015.
The subsequent announcements of funding represent additional money on top of that £1.4 billion.
All of the Taskforce recommendations are funded from the overall envelope agreed in the Spending Review.
The £600 million set out by the Chancellor set the foundation for the Taskforce by establishing the minimum amount of additional new money that would need to be spent to transform mental health services. This was underpinned by an understanding that improving mental health services will improve how the wider NHS functions and generate savings that can be reinvested into services.
The Prime Minister announced investment for mental health on 11 January comprising:
― £290 million to provide specialist care to mothers before and after having their babies;
― £247 million for mental health services in hospital emergency departments; and
― over £400 million to enable 24/7 treatment in communities as a safe and effective alternative to hospital.
The figures in the Prime Minister’s announcement represent the total amount that we anticipate will be invested in these three priority areas over the five-year period from 2016/17 to 2020/21.
The £1 billion in 2020/21 announced on 23 February 2016 will fund all of the priority recommendations for the National Health Service set out in the Mental Health Taskforce report. It includes the anticipated costs in the year 2020/21 of the three priority areas that the Prime Minister announced.
