Mind responds to NHS funding announcement

In response to today's announcement of £20bn extra funding for the NHS, Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, the mental health charity, said:

"We welcome today's announcement and the commitment by the Prime Minister that extra funds will go towards mental health services. We look forward to seeing plans for how the money will be spent, as mental health services need their fair share of this investment. After decades of under-funding, mental health services are under enormous strain. Just one in three people with a mental health problem access any kind of support at all and demand is rising as we start to see the true extent of need.  

"The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently estimated that if the ambition were to provide mental health services to two-thirds of those who need them, spend would need to more than double over the next 15 years to £27bn. This is the scale of the challenge facing the NHS. The current five-year plan for mental health is the minimum needed to prevent catastrophic failure; building services that are fit for purpose and will carry us into the future will take sustained and significant investment over many years.”