Poulter – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Poulter on 2015-11-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to ensure that the access and waiting time standards for mental health set out in the NHS Five Year Forward plan are implemented in full.

Ben Gummer

The Government provides direction and ambitions for the National Health Service through the NHS Mandate. NHS England are held to account in achieving the NHS Mandate commitments including the new mental health access and waiting time standards detailed in the NHS Mandate for 2015/16.

NHS England published guidance in February this year for clinical commissioning groups that set out how the new access and waiting time standards for mental health services are to be introduced and implemented.

Implementation of the new access and waiting time standards is supported by an £80 million funding package for 2015/16.