Mental Health Strategy for England

I am today informing the House of the Government’s plans to develop a new, once-in-a-generation, cross-Government strategy for mental health in England, which will be published later this year. The strategy will be informed by a call for evidence, alongside wider engagement, including through the ongoing independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism, and the modern service framework for severe mental illness. The call for evidence launched on Friday 15 May and will close on Friday 10 July.

Good mental health is central to our overall health, wellbeing and ability to participate fully in education, work and community life. Yet far too many people are experiencing mental health problems and distress, with over a quarter of young people now estimated to have a common mental health condition such as depression or anxiety.

The Government have already taken significant steps to improve mental health services. We have taken through landmark reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 and met our manifesto commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 additional mental health staff three years early, and we are expanding mental health support teams to reach every school and college by 2029. This is backed by a record £16.1 billion forecast to be spent on NHS mental health services this year.

However, we know that there is more to do, within and beyond the NHS. Demand for mental health support has risen rapidly, with long waits and too many people unable to access the right support when they need it. Despite sustained investment, systems remain too often reactive, fragmented and variable, with outcomes that fall short of what people and communities need.

It is time to go further and take a new approach. We want a mental health system and society that respond earlier and more proportionately to need, providing the right tools and intervening before distress escalates to crisis. We want a system organised around participation, not thresholds, where people can access timely, practical support that matches their needs and circumstances, and where support is joined up, with no wrong front door.

The 10-year health plan set out an ambitious vision for reform of the NHS, centred around three strategic shifts: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. The mental health strategy is the next stage of this Government’s programme of reform, and it will be informed by the independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism. This review, chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy and engaging with experts in the field, including people with lived experience, will make recommendations on how to shift from a system that responds late and is overly focused on diagnosis to one that responds earlier, more proportionately, and with improving participation in education and work in mind.