Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress is being made on implementing the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health recommendation that NHS England should 9a) define a quantified national reduction in premature mortality among people with severe mental illness, and (b) devise an operational plan for this from 2017/18.

NHS England published the document ‘Implementing the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health’ (FYFV) in July 2016 setting out a high level operational plan to achieve a reduction in premature mortality of people living with severe mental illness (SMI). 280,000 more people will have their physical health needs met by increasing early detection and expanding access to evidence-based physical care assessment and intervention each year. The implementation plan sets out in detail where and when funding to deliver the FYFV will be available and can be viewed via the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fyfv-mh.pdf

To date, significant progress has been made across the following areas:

- To support delivery and commissioning in primary care, NHS England is finalising the national clinical commissioning group (CCG) guidance for improving physical health care for people living with SMI. The guidance aims to improve access and quality of both physical health assessments and interventions delivered within primary care and will showcase and share innovative delivery models such as enhanced primary care services;

- Work is underway to establish CCG - and Sustainability and Transformation Plan – level trajectories for the numbers of physical health checks and interventions to be achieved cumulatively across primary and secondary care settings;

- Significant expansion and extension of the Patients with Severe Mental Illness Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) scheme has been secured and for 2017-19 (a two year scheme) it will be implemented through the standard contract and therefore no longer voluntary. For the first time the CQUIN will make outcome based payments, focused on services that deliver positive change around smoking cessation and weight loss for people with SMI. The updated CQUIN also aims to improve collaborative working with primary care clinicians to ensure an integrated approach to improving physical health care; and

- Ensuring data flow to be able to measure physical health checks and interventions in primary care: NHS England is planning to rely on a CCG-level collection for informing the primary care element of such trajectories, given the spectrum of commissioning arrangements that may be in place to support the delivery of this ambition across various localities.

Work is also underway within arm’s length body partners to progress this agenda.