Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce short-term readmissions following mental health inpatient discharge.

In 2023, NHS England published guidance on the commissioning and delivery of acute inpatient mental health care for adults and older adults, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/acute-inpatient-mental-health-care-for-adults-and-older-adults/

This encourages integrated care boards and mental health providers to monitor the length of hospital stay, the number of people who are clinically ready for discharge and who have not been discharged, reasons for delayed discharges, and reasons for readmission within six months, in order to monitor the effectiveness of local discharge arrangements and to identify improvements.

NHS England is also delivering a universal culture of care improvement programme, which all National Health Service and major independent providers are participating in. The programme is based on co-produced standards for high quality inpatient care, which include commitments to improve discharge and follow up support.

Improving access to high quality community mental health care is critical to reducing the number of avoidable admissions to hospital and supporting people in community settings following a hospital spell. Since 2019, NHS England has invested significant additional funding to support services to transform and expand services in line with the vision set out in the Community Mental Health Framework. The new approach integrates community mental health services with primary care, whilst also improving partnerships with voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations, local authorities, and other local organisations to offer people holistic and personalised care for both their clinical and social needs, with both a ‘need-led’ and ‘no wrong door’ approach.

NHS England continues to prioritise improving services for people with mental health problems, including through the development of new guidance on delivering personalised care and support, for instance the Personalised Care Framework: a Modern Care Programme Approach, the piloting and rollout of 24/7 Neighbourhood Mental Health Centres across the country, and the development of a new modern service framework for severe mental illness expected in 2026.