Mental Health Services: Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships

(asked on 19th March 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will take steps to ensure that Sustainability and Transformation Plans do not reduce how much they spend on mental health care.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 22nd March 2018

The National Health Service recently published guidance setting out the expectations for commissioners and providers who make up sustainability and transformation partnerships’ (STPs) footprints for updating their operational plans for 2018/19. This includes confirming a continued commitment to deliver service expansions set out by the Mental Health Taskforce and achievement by each and every clinical commissioning group (CCG) of the Mental Health Investment Standard. This requires all CCGs to increase spending on mental health by at least as much as the percentage overall increase to their allocations and is subject to confirmation by their auditors.

NHS England’s national mental health team and regional teams are working closely with STP footprints to deliver the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health commitments, based on the trajectories published in implementing the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. Through this and careful tracking of progress and investment, NHS England will ensure implementation of recommendations to improve community-based support for people with mental health conditions.

The £1.8 billion Sustainability and Transformation Fund was created to help improve NHS financial sustainability and performance management. To help achieve this aim the majority of funding is allocated (subject to trusts meeting both financial and performance targets) to providers of emergency care that are under the greatest financial pressure. Recognising the need to incentivise the overall sustainability of the provider sector a further £100 million is allocated to non-acute providers, including mental health trusts, in 2017-18.

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