New look NHS 

The Government's Health and Social Care Bill finally became an Act of Parliament in March 2012. This means that over the last few months there have been lots of new changes to the way the NHS involves people who use its services, and to those who work within it.

We want to make sure that the reforms will improve mental health services in England and that people with mental health problems are placed at the heart of the new NHS structure.

We believe there should be choice of high quality mental health services that are available to use for everyone with a mental health problem. We want to see health care services meet the needs of individuals and patients being involved in decisions made about their mental healthcare needs.

We want the Government to work hard to make the reforms truly effective and that people with mental health problems receive the right care at the right time.

Our campaign has several priorities:

• with your help, we fed into the Government's consultation on shared decision making

• we have already been successful at securing vital changes to the Health & Social Care Act while it passed through Parliament, meaning mental health will be just as important as physical health and aftercare for people leaving psychiatric hospital will continue.

• we will continue to influence the new national bodies to make sure mental health is always a priority - this includes HealthWatch England, NHS England and Public Health England 

• we will support local Minds to engage with their clinical commissioning groups and Health and Wellbeing Boards to make sure good local mental health services are available in their area

• we will encourage and support individuals to get involved in their new local NHS structures and continue to help people to campaign on what matters to them in their local area

Thank you for sharing your stories with us, we used many of your experiences to help us with our response to the Government’s consultation on shared decision-making.