Four sustainability and transformation plan regions have failed to raise mental health spending as mandated by national leaders, HSJ can reveal.
Data analysed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, shared with HSJ, shows that mental health funding has dropped in four STP footprints as a proportion of the total allocations given to the clinical commissioning groups in each patch between 2015-16 and 2016-17.
The regions are:
- Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire and Luton: -1.55 per cent.
- Dorset: -0.76 per cent.
- Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West: -0.28 per cent.
- Northamptonshire: -0.15 per cent.
The data comes from NHS England’s mental health dashboard, which was published last year to show how commissioners fare against finance and performance indicators.
Nine more STPs have increased their investment in mental health by less than 2 per cent and a total of 15 have done so by less than 3 per cent.
Increasing mental health spending at least in line with increases CCGs’ overall budgets is NHS England’s key measure for assessing whether commissioners are upholding the policy of “parity of esteem” for mental and physical health.
Full story in The HSJ, 9 March 2017