Prioritising mental health within the new ten-year health plan could provide a major boost for the nation’s economy, Centre for Mental Health and the NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network said today.
With one million people waiting for support, the economic and social costs (including those related to sickness absence, presenteeism, reduced quality of life and informal care) of mental ill health total £300bn.
These figures cut across the entire workforce, and they are in contrast with the relatively small proportion of the NHS budget spent on mental health services – which accounts for less than 10 per cent of overall spend.
The government’s Mental Health Investment Standard, which aims to ensure that mental health services receive a growing share of the overall budget, has yet to be renewed for 2025/26, meaning that efforts to address the historic underfunding of services may start to be reversed.
Responding to the NHS Change consultation, the organisations say the ten-year plan is a vital opportunity for the government to invest in mental health – one they cannot afford to miss. The two organisations are reviewing the evidence about where investing in mental health is likely to bring the biggest benefits to the economy and wider society.
They note that meeting people’s needs early, providing care outside hospital whenever possible, and supporting people to build fulfilling lives, are the best investments with the biggest immediate and long-term benefits.
Examples of how this could be done include expanding evidence-based employment support, funding health visitors to support new mothers’ mental health and offering evidence-based parenting programmes, and providing better help for people experiencing a mental health crisis.
When it comes to employment, they found that people offered Individual Placement and Support (IPS), which is designed for people with severe mental illness, were twice as likely to gain employment (55% vs 28%) compared to other vocational and rehabilitation courses, with the total costs of IPS generally lower than standard services over the first 6 months.
Andy Bell, chief executive at Centre for Mental Health, said: “The Government has committed to treating mental and physical health equally and to helping health services to shift from treatment to prevention, from analogue to digital, and from hospital to communities. Investing in mental health can achieve all of these ambitions.
“We know that the Government faces difficult decisions about how to get the NHS back on its feet, so we have explored how investing in better mental health support can help to make that happen. Not taking this chance would be a false economy and lead to even higher costs as people’s mental health deteriorates and they need more acute and costly forms of care.”
Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said: “The case for investing in the country’s mental health is clear, it is not just good for people to have better mental health but good for the economy as well. We know the direct economic costs of mental ill health, including those costs related to sickness absence, staff turnover and unemployment, run to a staggering £110 billion. This is a huge amount of money considering the current fiscal environment we are in.
“We welcome the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s pledge that his department will deliver billions of pounds in economic growth. Many people are out of work due to long-term mental health problems, so helping them back to work through evidence-based models such as Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is beneficial to their recovery as well as the economy.
“But reform will not come for free and our members would like reassurances from the government that mental health investment will be maintained. The mental health sector is facing more demand than ever, showing the need for early intervention. We know the solutions are often wider than the NHS, with most policy that impacts people’s health made outside the NHS, and so will require greater partnership, integration and oversight at a regional and national level.
“We hope the government will use next year’s spending review to commitment to improving mental health and providing the sector the right support to achieve its ambitions.”
