Healthwatch England's policy position on mental health
Four years after the NHS Long Term Plan committed to more generous funding and rapid expansion of mental health services, people still face challenges in accessing timely, personalised and safe care.
In March 2024, more than one million people were waiting to be seen by community mental health services, and the number of young people struggling with their mental health has nearly doubled since 2017. The Care Quality Commission has raised warnings about the quality of mental health care provision, and a statutory inquiry has been launched to look at mental health inpatient failings.
The previous government scrapped plans for a 10-year strategy for mental health in 2023. The current Labour government paused the development of a Major Conditions Strategy in July 2024, which would have included mental health alongside five other conditions. However, the government has confirmed it will introduce a Mental Health Bill to overhaul legislation to improve when and how people are ‘sectioned’ for compulsory treatment.
Below, Healthwatch England set out our position and calls for action based on feedback collected from thousands of people.
Our recommendations
- Provision of early or ongoing support, including more school-based teams.
- Parity of esteem – where people’s mental health needs are considered equally as important as physical health needs - to be put into practice.
- Reductions in waiting times for assessments, treatment and crisis support.
- A choice of more personalised treatment options - not just six sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
- Improved transitions from child to adult mental health services.
- If passed in Parliament, swift implementation of the Mental Health Bill to ensure patients get more say over their treatment and improved access to advocates.
- Reductions in the disproportionate number of Black men sectioned for treatment.
- Improved access to mental health support for autistic or disabled people.
- Introduction of ‘measures that matter’ to patients to judge the quality of inpatient care, as recommended by a recent independent review.
Our evidence
Tens of thousands of people have shared feedback about mental health care with Healthwatch over the past 11 years. Key findings are listed below in chronological order:
- Delays in accessing care impacted people’s ability to work and attend education on family relationships, according to an analysis of 961 pieces of feedback published in October 2023.
- People believed the support offered was too limited or not personalised to their complex mental health needs.
- 74% of people seeking specialist mental health support needed to go to their GP two or more times before getting referred, compared to 62% of all types of referrals, according to survey figures published in October 2023.
- 44% of people answering our national poll in July 2023 said they were not confident of accessing timely mental health support.
- A post-pandemic report we published in July 2022 described many concerns, including variable mental health expertise among GPs, over-subscribed crisis services, poor communication between services and premature ending of treatment.
- In-depth interviews with nearly 50 young people in 2020, found that they wanted mental health awareness days in school, regular mental health check-ups, flexible appointment times, a variety of therapies and peer support.
Our action
From our launch in 2013 onwards, we have advised governments that mental health care has been a key area of concern for the public.
In 2018, we oversaw a national engagement exercise involving every local Healthwatch in England, which collected 34,000 experiences and views on mental health. These findings were instrumental in informing the NHS Long Term Plan’s ambitions to inject more funding into services.
However, as need has grown, especially during the pandemic, we have continued to press for change. In December 2023, we highlighted major gaps in child and adolescent mental health services, such as delayed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) assessments and shortages of medication for the disorder. Following discussions with NHS England about our concerns, a new ADHD Taskforce was announced in March 2024. To launch this Taskforce, we are convening a workshop involving people with lived experience of ADHD to meet with NHSE officials in September 2024 to share their experiences and help shape the direction of policy reform.
