The independent think tank; King’s Fund says physical health services are still getting bigger budgets vs mental health services, five years after government ministers promised parity of esteem.
The disclosure that mental health care providers continue to be given far smaller budgets, has sparked concern that patients in desperate need of mental healthcare are receiving poorer quality provision due to the widening gap in revenue.
Mental health trust budgets within NHS England rose by less than 2.5% in 2016-17, a far smaller figure than the 6% enhancement received by acute Trusts and those areas providing specialist care.
This is the fifth year in succession that bosses at the NHS gave physical health services a greater financial increase, despite government ministers repeatedly emphasising the need to give mental health services more aid.
The report’s author Helen Gilburt, a health policy fellow at the King’s Fund, found that continuing inequality in NHS funding was inhibiting mental health trusts from providing enough staff, which is damaging patient care and services further.
Gilburt said, “While the NHS is in a difficult position, the slow growth in mental health trust funding and the problem of not having enough staff are both having a real impact on patients, who are having to put up with services that are being stretched to the limit”.
Paul Farmer, the chief executive of the charity Mind, said: “Mental health has been under-resourced for too long, with dire consequences for people with mental health problems. “If people don’t get the help they need, when they need it, they are likely to become more unwell and need more intensive and expensive support further down the line.”
There is some more positive news, in 2017, 84% of mental health trusts received an increase to their budgets from NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) a substantial increase on the 51%, 60% and 56% which they received in the previous three years. Founded in 2015-16, the mental health investment standard compels all CCGs to provide mental health services a rise annually which at least matches their own increase in budget.
Gilburt however added that, “the [overall] funding gap between mental health and cute NHS services is continuing to widen. As long as this is the case, the government’s mission to tackle the burning injustice faced by people with mental health problems will remain out of reach”.
NHS England stated that funding for mental health provision rose in last year by 6.3% to £9.7bn compared with a smaller increase (of just 3.7%) in other areas of the health budget adding that, mental health was also receiving a marginally greater share of overall CCG spending, at 13.6%.
