Five regions cut spending on mental health, Pulse reports

A Pulse investigation has found that five clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England are planning to cut spending on mental health services in 2017/18, despite pledges by NHS England to increase spending in line with physical health spending.

The findings come after NHS England said in its Five Year Forward View for mental health in February 2016 that CCGs should spend an extra £1 billion a year on mental health by 2020/21. It also requires CCGs to increase their spend on mental health services in line with their budget increases – the so-called ‘parity of esteem’ standard.

The investigation revealed that South Sefton, Scarborough, Isle of Wight, St Helens and Walsall CCGs are collectively spending £4.5 million less in 2017/18 than they spent on services in 2016/17.

FoI figures revealed mental health services in Walsall will be experiencing the largest cut with the CCG reducing spending by £1.9 million (3.6 per cent) despite its overall budget increasing by 1.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, data on 127 CCGs in England revealed that the total CCG spend on mental health increased by 4.15 per cent overall.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the BMA’s GP Committee, said: “This goes against the pronouncements of government that mental health will have priority, that we will see more support in the community, the promises we’ve had that there will be greater numbers of mental health workers in primary care. Cutting the mental health budget will have a reverse and damaging effect.

He added: “This will simply result in patients, by default, turning to GPs when they have neither the capacity nor the expertise to deal with many of these patients. This goes against the grain of the pronouncements from NHS England and government.”