Policy watch
| Published date | 18 August 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/mhsi.2010.0437 |
| Pages | 3-5 |
| Date | 18 August 2010 |
| Author | Simon Lawton‐Smith |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Mental Health and Social Inclusion • Volume 14 Issue 3 • August 2010 © Pier Professional Ltd 3
10.5042/mhsi.2010.0437
POLICY
expected savings will accrue not just to the NHS
(which is paying for it) but also to social services,
employers and the welfare benefits system.
Some concern has been voiced that the words
‘well-being’ and ‘social inclusion’ do not feature in
the document at all, although I am inclined not to
panic about this, given the relative brevity of the
proposals. So what I will do is cherry-pick some of
the specific commitments made under three of the
31 areas of government listed in the document – the
NHS, public health, and social care and disability.
Introducing the section on the NHS, the
government assures us that ‘We are committed to an
NHS that is free at the point of use and available to
everyone based on need, not the ability to pay. We want
to free NHS staff from political micromanagement,
increase democratic participation in the NHS, and
make the NHS more accountable to the patients that it
serves’ (p24). So far, so New Labour.
But it gets more interesting further on. First, there
is a guarantee that health spending will increase in
real terms in each year of the Parliament (p24). This
does not mean that there will not be cuts in NHS
services, but it will be harder for local commissioners
to blame them on a cut in central government
funding. And it means that Andrew Lansley, as
Secretary of State for Health, is going to have an
easier ride in Cabinet discussions about cutting up
the funding cake than some of his colleagues.
Having said that, there is a specific pledge to cut
the cost of NHS administration by a third, and to
My last Policy watch was written before the UK
general election, and hedged its bets on who was
going to be in power by the summer by touching on
all three main parties’ mental health policies – so far
as they could be discerned.
But now we know. Assuming that nothing serious
disrupts the honeymoon of the Conservative/LibDem
Coalition Government in the next few weeks, we
can be somewhat clearer about what to expect
from the government in the coming months. I say
somewhat because the coalition’s Our Programme for
Government (HM Government, 2010) is, as ever with
these documents, strong on the big idea but rather
vague on the detail.
There are only a couple of specific references to
mental health in the document’s 36 pages. The first,
in fact, comes under Defence, namely, ‘providing
extra support for veteran mental health needs’ (p15).
This was also a priority area under the previous
government, and it has attracted the interest of
the Big Lottery Fund, which has plans to establish
a £35 million independent trust to support the
psychological needs of ex-service personnel (Big
Lottery Fund, 2010)
The second reference is to ‘ensure greater access
to talking therapies to reduce long-term costs for the
NHS’ (p28). While welcome for all those who are
pressing for a wider range of psychological therapies
to be available, and for the current Improving Access
to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme to
be bolstered, this rather misses the point that the
Policy watch
Simon Lawton-Smith
Head of Policy, Mental Health Foundation
Abstract
A quarterly review of recent and forthcoming developments within mental health policy.
Key words
Mental health policy; Public mental health; Well-being; Social inclusion; Government
To continue reading
Request your trial