Cutbacks are leaving adults and children without the support they need, just when it is most wanted
Young people are not getting the support services they need. Photograph: Alamy
Mental health services are facing serious financial pressures. From hospitals to community care, from children's
services to those for adults, budgets for mental health support are
being cut across the country. And this is having an effect on a range of
services, especially those that help people to stay well and to recover
their lives.
In 2010-11, the last year for which we have reliable spending data, funding for adult mental health services fell in real terms for the first time in a decade. Freedom of information requests since then have unearthed evidence of further cuts in many places both for adults' and children's mental health services. In some areas, this means specialist community teams are being "merged" into generic services. In others, support is limited to those with the most urgent needs while cost-effective early interventions like school and parenting programmes are scaled back. In such cases, short-term savings to balance the books could end up costing the public purse much more as people's needs escalate and become more complex.
The NHS is now committed through its mandate from the government to work towards putting mental health on a par with physical health. At present we are a long way from achieving this. Mental ill health accounts for a quarter of all illness in the UK yet it gets just 13% of NHS funding. And specialist children's mental health services get less than 1%.
Long-term under-investment and short-term cuts combine to put services under serious pressure. From the continued use of police stations as "places of safety" for people in a mental health emergency to inappropriate admission of children to adult psychiatric wards, these pressures affect some of the most vulnerable people at the most difficult times in their lives.
Read more...
In 2010-11, the last year for which we have reliable spending data, funding for adult mental health services fell in real terms for the first time in a decade. Freedom of information requests since then have unearthed evidence of further cuts in many places both for adults' and children's mental health services. In some areas, this means specialist community teams are being "merged" into generic services. In others, support is limited to those with the most urgent needs while cost-effective early interventions like school and parenting programmes are scaled back. In such cases, short-term savings to balance the books could end up costing the public purse much more as people's needs escalate and become more complex.
The NHS is now committed through its mandate from the government to work towards putting mental health on a par with physical health. At present we are a long way from achieving this. Mental ill health accounts for a quarter of all illness in the UK yet it gets just 13% of NHS funding. And specialist children's mental health services get less than 1%.
Long-term under-investment and short-term cuts combine to put services under serious pressure. From the continued use of police stations as "places of safety" for people in a mental health emergency to inappropriate admission of children to adult psychiatric wards, these pressures affect some of the most vulnerable people at the most difficult times in their lives.
Read more...
