Rebecca Long Bailey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rebecca Long Bailey on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to implement the recommendations of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Commission on Acute Adult Psychiatric Care in its report, entitled Old problems, new solutions, published in February 2016.

Nicola Blackwood

The Department of Health welcomed the publication of the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s Commission on Acute Adult Psychiatric Care: “Old Problems, New Solutions”. The Department and NHS England have already started to implement some of the key recommendations of the Commission including:

― Announcing a national ambition to eliminate inappropriate out of area treatments;

― Investing £400 million in crisis resolution and home treatment teams as a safe alternative to hospital;

― Designing referral to treatment standards for acute mental health care, identifying effectives pathways of care and clinically appropriate maximum waiting times for treatment by 2020;

― Introducing capital schemes to improve the availability of supported housing and working with the Department for Communities and Local Government to address housing and health issues throughout 2016; and

― Working with NHS Improvement to address Mental Health Delayed Transfers of Care.

NHS England accepted the independent Mental Health Taskforce’s recommendation to publish a response to the Commission’s report at the end of 2016/17, which will set out in more detail how we are implementing its recommendations.