Mind responds to details on £150 million for mental health
The UK government have today revealed how they plan to spend the previously announced £150 million in funding for mental health services.
Commenting on the announcement, Paul Spencer, Head of Health, Policy & Campaigns at Mind, said:
“While we’re pleased to see details of how the Department for Health and Social Care plan to spend the previously announced £150 million in funding for mental health, this must be only the beginning of mental health investment. Mental health services have faced decades of underfunding in comparison to physical health, and mental health received none of the Covid-19 recovery funding announced in 2021, despite huge backlogs in mental health care and the well-known impact of the pandemic on the nation's mental health. We’re seeing the human cost of that playing out now as people wait days in our A&Es for mental health beds and people experiencing complex mental health problems struggle without help around us in our communities.
"Significant time, effort and funding must be invested into getting mental health services across England and Wales up to the standard we deserve. This must start with an announcement of the 10-year cross-Government mental health plan we were promised last year, alongside the investment to turn it into reality. We are in the middle of the biggest mental health crisis the country has ever seen and we need to see a response that recognises the scale of the challenge we face.”
