Mental Health Services

(asked on 14th November 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons publication of mental health pathways for Crisis Care, Perinatal mental health, Children and young people's mental health, and Acute mental health care has been delayed; and when he expects those pathways will be published.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 20th November 2017

Significant progress has been made in relation to the development of a comprehensive set of mental health care pathways, including the publication to date of pathways for early intervention in psychosis, community services for eating disorders in children and young people and urgent and emergency mental health liaison.

The pathways are intended to provide clear guidance to both commissioners and providers in relation to the commissioning and implementation of services to improve access and outcomes for people with mental health problems, and contain a set of quality benchmarks against which local systems can understand their progress in implementing them. The introduction of new access and waiting time standards would only be made in areas where it was clear that the funding and workforce were in place to support this.

An updated timetable for the publication and delivery of the mental health pathways was provided within ‘Implementing the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health’.

The pathways for crisis care, perinatal mental health, children and young people's mental health, and acute mental health care have been developed in draft and will be published in due course. Whilst much of the content has been finalised, it is still being reviewed to ensure that it is in line with the wider Five Year Forward View strategy and that it provides the most helpful guidance to both commissioners and providers within the current context.

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