NHS mental health trusts 'still receiving much smaller budgets than hospitals despite parity pledge'

NHS mental health care providers are still receiving less funding than physical health providers despite ministers promising “parity of esteem”.

A report published by the King’s Fund highlighted the disparity between the amount of funding provided for mental health services compared to physical health services.

The report raised concerns over the quality of care that is being provided to mental health patients due to the gap in income for staff.

In 2013, the government made a commitment to achieving parity of esteem between physical and mental health.

The commitment was followed by a pledge of £1.25 billion for child and adolescent mental health, a national strategy for adult mental health and an investment of £1 billion to support its delivery.

However despite the government’s dedication to improve parity, the budgets of NHS mental health trusts in England only rose by less than 2.5 per cent in 2016-17 compared to the 6 per cent received by those providing specialist care.

In terms of income, Mental Health trusts in England received increases of just 5.5 per cent between 2012 and 2013 compared to budgets for acute hospitals which rose by 16.8 per cent over the same period.

Paul Farmer, Chief executive at Mind, the mental health charity said: “After years of underfunding and neglect, and at a time of increasing demand as more and more people seek help, we need to see continued momentum around improving mental health services.”

Mentioning the Five Year Forward view for Mental Health launched in 2016, which came with a commitment by the NHS to spend £1billion more on mental health services by 2020-21, he said: “Evidence suggests that it is materialising but we know there are concerns about how it is reaching the frontline.

“Local commissioners are now required to report their spend on mental health so transparency around funding should improve – it’s up to the rest of us to use this data to hold the system to account and make sure the money gets where it needs to be.”

The report also noted that underfunding has led to staff shortages in the NHS mental health services.

It said: “Our work demonstrates that NHS mental health trusts are struggling to staff existing services on a day-to-day basis and, while actions to implement routine safe staffing levels are evolving, the lack of available staff, particularly nursing staff, at a national level continues to undermine this.

“Recent announcements of an increase in clinical placements for nursing students are welcome but these do not address the numbers of nurses entering training and will not fulfil demand in the short term.”

Sophie Corlett, Director of external relations at Mind said: “I think there’s no doubt that jobs have become harder to be in due to under funding.”

Mr Farmer said: “Mental health services are heavily reliant on their staff, who do a fantastic job and can make all the difference to the experience of people under their care.

“But huge gaps in the workforce will take years to fill, which puts enormous pressure on the current workforce and means that two-thirds of people with mental health problems get no help or support at all.”

Despite the fact that the report showed that parity had not been reached, it did show growth in mental health income throughout 2016/17.

However the report said: “A vicious circle exists between the availability of trained staff and investment to support that workforce.”

It continued: “While the emphasis remains on allocating funding to support financial sustainability and improve performance in acute hospitals, the gap between growth in funding for NHS mental health providers and that for NHS acute providers will continue.

“Commissioners, providers and boards alike also need to be honest about where their priorities lie and what impact this will have on care”.