Tom Blenkinsop – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Blenkinsop on 2015-10-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to address the reported shortfall of £107 million in the Department’s 2015 budget and the consequent imbalance in funding for mental health services.

Alistair Burt

With the financial controls package and help from system leads, we are working towards delivering a balanced position against the overall spending controls in this financial year, despite an unprecedented level of deficit in the National Health Service provider sector.

The NHS must now put in place cost-control measures we have introduced, like clamping down on agency spend, limiting the use of management consultants and making sure trusts have to justify the pay package of any manager who is paid more than the Prime Minister, while we continue to work with hospitals on ways to improve productivity and reduce waste.

This year, we are investing £173 million of additional money in mental health, including £30 million for services for young people with eating disorders. We are taking a targeted and phased approach to the additional investment, to enable local areas to develop additional capacity and a collaborative approach across health, education and children’s services. This is what is needed to make a real difference.

We remain committed to providing the additional £1.25 billion investment in mental health services over the next five years, as announced in the Budget 2015.