Levels of investment in mental health services published

This week the Department of Health published the latest annual reports on the levels of investment in mental health services in England - letter from Steve Shrubb, Director, Mental Health Network

Dear Colleague,

The National Survey of Investment in Adult Mental Health Services discusses the levels of investment in working age adult (aged 18-64) mental health services, and the National Survey of Investment in Services for Older People discusses investment levels in services for people aged 65 and above.

The reports have been produced by Mental Health Strategies and examine the investment in services for the financial year 2010/11. This is the tenth set of such reports for working age adults and the fifth report in the series for older people.
As a member of the Mental Health Network we hope a summary of the findings will be of benefit to you and your organisation.

The National Survey of Investment in Adult Mental Health Services

• Total investment equated to £6.550bn in 2010/11, an increase of 3.6 per cent (£227m) on the previous year in cash terms and 0.7 per cent in real terms.
• There has been an overall real terms rise of 58.5 per cent since 2001/02.This amounts to £195.90 per head among a weighted population.
• 25.8 per cent of services were delivered by non statutory providers.
• The three defined priority areas of Crisis Resolution, Early Intervention and Assertive Outreach benefited from only £0.6m in additional real terms funding. While Early Intervention services suffered a 3.0 per cent funding cut in 2010/11, their caseload was 2.3 per cent higher at year end compared to 2009/10.
•  Investment in psychological therapies is shown to have more than doubled since 2002/03. Since 2007/08 there has been a real terms increase of £182.3m in this area.
• The areas receiving the most significant real terms funding increases between 2002/03 and 2010/11 were: access and crisis services (177 per cent); secure and high dependency (156 per cent); home support (70 per cent); mentally disordered offenders (65 per cent); and continuing care (57 per cent).
• There has been a more than nine fold increase in direct payments recorded since 2002/03. Almost a quarter of the overall investment (£1.460bn or 22.3 per cent) is spent in London alone. Investment in the other SHA regions ranged from £0.341bn in the North East to £0.716bn in the West Midlands. There were reductions in investment noted in three regions: East Midlands (0.7 per cent); East of England (0.4 per cent); and Yorkshire and Humber (0.8 per cent).
• Overall investment per head varied from £177.90 in Yorkshire and Humber to £211.60 in London.

The National Survey of Investment in Mental Health Services for Older People

• Total investment in mental health services for older people was found to have increased by 6.9 per cent in cash terms and 3.8 per cent in real terms to £2.859bn in 2010/11.
•  This amounts to £344.70 per weighted head of population, £129 commissioned by local authorities and £215.70 by PCTs.
• There were three SHA regions with real terms funding cuts in 2010/11: London (1 per cent); North West and South West (both 2 per cent). Real terms funding increases across regions ranged from 2 per cent in the East of England to 14 per cent in South Central.
• The overall real terms investment increase since 2006/07 was found to be 35.5 per cent.
• Investment per head ranged from £261.20 in the West Midlands to £493.50 in South Central.
• Local authorities are responsible for a much larger proportion of commissioning these services, 37 per cent compared to 18 per cent of working age adult services.
• 42 per cent of services were provided by the non statutory sector in 2010/11, compared to 28 per cent in 2007/08.
• In 2010/11 85 per cent of investment was devoted to either residential primary and community care (43.9 per cent), or to ‘’other specialist mental health services’ such as inpatient, outpatient and community mental health teams (41.1 per cent).
• The direct services receiving the most funding were: care homes (£566.80m); care homes with nursing (£491.97m); inpatient care - acute assessment (£394.73m); integrated community mental health teams (£309.43m); inpatient care - continuing care (£205.54m); and home care services (£121.56m).

The full reports are available from the DH website. As ever, if you have any questions regarding the reports, please contact the team at mentalhealthnetwork@nhsconfed.org.

With best wishes,

Steve Shrubb
Director, Mental Health Network