NHS warned against ‘betraying’ mental health patients

Mental health groups say the NHS risks a ‘catastrophic betrayal’ of patients if the £1 billion put aside for psychological therapies and staff is delayed to plug funding gaps left by the Budget.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists told The Independent that NHS England ‘must keep the promises’ it made in its Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, which launched last year.

This comes as a report by the children’s charity Spurgeons shows the number of young people who were admitted to A&E for self-harm increased by half in the last five years.

It also found that 40 per cent of patients referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in 2016/17 were never assessed.

Mental health charity YoungMinds said these figures were yet more evidence that existing funding for mental health does not yet reflect the ‘true scale’ of the problem.

It would therefore be unacceptable to allow any more funding to be ‘siphoned off’, they said.

This comes after the Budget announcements last week that the NHS would get less than half of the £4 billion it requested to keep services operating next year.

This prompted hospital bosses to warn there would be ‘tough choices’ to make about what services the NHS could continue to fund.

The £1 billion earmarked in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health by 2021 is intended to fund mental health crisis teams in A&Es, suicide prevention, and reduce the number of people sent away from home for treatment.

Wendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, told The Independent: “Regardless of this week’s budget settlement, NHS England must keep their promises to invest an additional £1 billion in frontline mental health services and treat one million more people by 2021.”