Recent survey results reinforce the urgent need for more funding to support the growing demand for children and young people’s mental health services.
Read more here.
Six new research projects have been awarded a share of £2m funding by NIHR and UKRI to investigate and reduce the impacts of Covid-19 and the pandemic on mental health.
The projects will focus on reducing the negative effects of the pandemic on the mental health of three at-risk groups: healthcare workers, children and younger people, and those with serious mental health problems.
To find out more click here.
This document contains the government’s mandate to NHS England and NHS Improvement and confirms the objectives and budget for the year ahead. The financial directions provide further details on how NHS England’s budget is broken down.
Read the mandate here
There has been prolonged under-investment in facilities across the English NHS. However, while restricted capital funding is affecting all sectors of the NHS, there is a particular need for capital investment within the mental health sector. This briefing summarises the findings of a survey NHS Providers sent to NHS mental health trusts and foundation trusts to gather further evidence on the sector’s capital funding needs, to support the case they are making for the sector to receive its fair share of capital investment in future.
Read the report here
Centre for Mental Health briefing exploring what a fair and sustainable funding settlement for social care needs to look like in order to deliver parity of esteem for mental health and sufficient funding to support people of working age as well as those in later life. It reviews the current funding and provision of mental health social work for people of working age in England. It finds that mental health social work has a vital role in helping people to live independently and to secure their rights and dignity. A successful funding settlement for social care must begin with a recognition that a significant proportion of adult social care supports people of working age: it is not just for those in later life. Social services have specific responsibilities in relation to mental health, as they do for people with learning disabilities and other care needs, at all stages of life.
Click here to view the full report.
This report finds that in comparison to similarly advanced economies, the UK’s capital investment in the NHS has been very low. On average, a person living in the UK has missed out on almost £2,000 since 1975 – the equivalent of over £100 billion overall. The report recommends a new settlement to fund capital and support transformation totalling £5.6 billion per year – an 80 per cent uplift. The PFI legacy must also be urgently addressed, through a ‘right to enfranchisement’ for the NHS, which would bring those that represent bad deals back into public ownership.
Click here to view the full report.
Department of Health and Social Care, April 2019
The CIA is a model for the NHS to use to support economic appraisals in business cases. It replaces the Generic Economic Model. The user guide shows how the CIA model can be used to support economic appraisals in business cases. It provides guidance on the key economic principles, how these are used in economic appraisals and how the outcome of these appraisals is interpreted.
Click here to view the guidance.
Children’s Commissioner, April 2019
This report looks at the amount spent on “low-level” mental health support for children in England. “Low-level” mental health services are preventative and early intervention services for treating problems like anxiety and depression or eating disorders, such as support provided by school nurses or counsellors, drop-in centres or online counselling services. The report reveals that local areas, which included both local authorities and NHS spending, were allocated a total of £226 million for low-level mental health services in 2018/19, just over £14 per child. The report also found large variations between geographical areas in the funding available, and where spending on services has fallen locally it has been driven by reduced spending by local authorities.
Click here to view the full report.
Institute for Public Policy Research, November 2018
The NHS is currently in the process of authoring a long-term plan that will set out what it wants to achieve with additional funding and how this funding will be allocated. This Institute for Public Policy Research briefing argues that it is crucial that this plan raises our ambitions on mental health, what parity of esteem looks like and how much it will cost to get there.
Click here to view the full report.
