Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what reports NHS England has produced on progress in achieving parity of esteem for mental health.
Alistair Burt
NHS England and the Department jointly published Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020 in October 2014. This publication recognised that a key element of achieving parity across mental and physical health care depends on enabling people to have timely access to evidence-based and effective care, and set out a clear vision for the development of access and waiting time standards in mental health including introduction of the first set of standards on early intervention in psychosis and psychological therapies, as well as signalling new investment in liaison mental health services in acute hospitals.
NHS England’s Five Year Forward View set out a clear commitment to a more equal response across mental and physical health and achieving genuine parity of esteem by 2020.
In support of this objective, NHS England’s latest planning guidance, Forward View into Action: planning for 2015-16, includes an expectation that clinical commissioning groups’ (CCG) spending on mental health services in 2015-16 should increase in real terms, and grow by at least as much as each CCG’s allocation increase to support the ambition of parity between mental and physical health.
NHS England has commissioned an independent Mental Health Task Force to produce a five-year mental health strategy, for improved access and outcomes in all settings, to be published in the New Year.
