Increased access to mental health care services for one million more people says HEE in its plan for the whole system

One million extra people will have access to mental health services by 2021 says Health Education England (HEE) in a comprehensive workforce plan outlining how the system will meet the diverse needs of mental health patients across the country and the mental health challenges set out in the Five Year Forward View which has been launched by Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt.

The plan Stepping forward to 2020/21:The mental health workforce plan for England is the very first time that health organisations including HEE, NHS England and NHS Improvement have come together to concentrate on mental health services to ensure it provides the very best outcomes for patients and they have access to better treatment.

The NHS will need more than 21,000 more mental health staff to increase patient access to services and simply adding more training posts will not be enough, increased investment in the development and re-skilling of existing staff is vital.

The plan sets out current position, where we need to be and how we are going to get there. A range of recommendations needed to transform the mental health workforce/system have been put forward they include:

• Improved access to services at an earlier stage. This will allow an extra one million people access to mental health services by 2020/21 including 70,000 more children and young people access to evidence interventions with a greater focus on prevention and wellbeing.
• Seven days a week, 24 hours a day access to services.  Full coverage across the country with evidence based Crisis response and home treatment and community perinatal teams. Making sure that no-one experiencing a mental health crisis is turned away for treatment.
• Delivering services in a more integrated way. For example, in integrated primary care based clinics serving long-term conditions and depression and anxiety. Also the expansion of perinatal services so 30,000 more women could have to services and.
• Embedding mental health services into the NHS, through better data, improved investment in research and improving local leadership to deliver the best outcomes. Patients will be able to see how well local areas are performing though published mental health dashboards.

Professor Ian Cumming, Chief Executive, Health Education England said:

Mental Health is a key priority for HEE. The FYFV for mental health laid out an ambition to see an additional one million people being treated by mental health services by 2021 including 70,000 more children and young people. This is something for the whole system is committed to working on to make sure patients get the best possible care

The workforce plan we have agreed with our partners across the system is based on the most comprehensive and robust study of the mental health workforce to date. We do not underestimate the scale of this challenge, to deliver the improvements we have said are required will require concerted action and focus from everyone working across the health and care system – this document lays out a plan to create that workforce.

I am confident that the NHS can rise to this challenge and that this plan is a significant step to make the improvements to care we all know are needed a reality.