Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for the policies of the Cabinet Office of the recommendations of the Mental Health Taskforce report, published in February 2016.

Alistair Burt

We welcome the recommendations for government in the report and will be considering how best to integrate them into our work programme. There will be an impact on policies across Government in this period and, more importantly, a positive impact on people using mental health services.

The Mental Health Five Year Forward View Taskforce Report proposes, and we accept, investing over £1 billion of additional funding by 2020/21 to reach one million more people. There are a number of recommendations in the report which will have an impact on crisis care services, accident and emergency departments, mothers suffering from mental health problems, suicide prevention, children and young people’s mental health services, access to psychological therapies and the physical health of people with mental health problems. The £1 billion announced with the Taskforce report is the total annual cost for all areas in 2020/21.

Announcements on the development of policies, including those with reference to implementing the Mental Health Taskforce will be made in due course.