Recommendations
As the Department and NHS England recognise, much remains to be done to secure the improvements that are urgently needed in mental health services. Our recommendations are as follows, and we will be returning to this topic to review progress later in this Parliament:
i. The Department and NHS England should collect the cost and performance data needed to understand, by the start of 2017–18:
- what the baseline position is in terms of the mental health services currently being delivered and the money being spent;
- how much money it will take to achieve their ambitions; and
- how best to prioritise the money available to get the best results and be clear about the outcomes that services achieve.
ii. The Government should build on the dialogue taking place in the Department of Health and NHS England, as well as with other government departments, to develop an effective strategy to integrate health services and to join up services between different parts of government to ensure continuity of care for those with mental health problems, whatever their circumstances and wherever they live.
iii. The Department, NHS England and Health Education England should work together to collect the information needed to estimate the workforce required to achieve parity of esteem between mental and physical health. By the start of 2017–18 it should put in place a plan for supplying that workforce.
iv. NHS England and NHS Improvement should accelerate work being done to incentivise clinical commissioning groups and providers to improve mental health services and outcomes, including by developing better payment mechanisms for implementation by April 2017.
v. NHS England should report back to us by December 2016 on implementing open-book reporting by clinical commissioning groups, particularly to explain what this shows about how much money clinical commissioning groups are spending on different mental health services.
© Parliamentary copyright 2015
16 September 2016