An investigation by mental health charity Mind shows that many areas spend “next to nothing” on preventing mental health problems.
Schools have long experienced problems in accessing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), many of which have been hit by government austerity measures.
On-going research by the charity YoungMinds has revealed that a majority of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and local authorities have reduced or frozen their spending on CAMHS since 2010.
Furthermore, recent NSPCC research found an average waiting time between referral to CAMHS and assessment of more than 26 weeks in some areas. The charity has also discovered that one in five children do not receive the help they need from CAMHS because of the pressure the services are under.
Mind uncovered the local authority spending figures via a series of Freedom of Information requests. It says that it also discovered “enormous confusion” about what local public health teams should be doing to safeguard people’s mental health.
And problems look set to get worse after the government confirmed a £200 million reduction in the public health grant for 2015/16.
Mental health problems are estimated to cost health and social care services £21 billion every year, but Mind says that the government’s recent commitment to put mental health on a par with physical health is being undermined by the way public health spending is reported. Local authorities are required by the Department of Health to report on their public health spending against a set list of categories, including sexual health services, obesity and stop smoking services.
Currently, any spending on public mental health is reported under “miscellaneous”, grouped together with 14 other areas.
Mind is now calling for mental health to be given its own spending category to reflect its importance.
Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, said: “The current spend on public mental health initiatives is negligible. The fact that local authorities’ public health teams are allowed to file mental health under ‘miscellaneous’ when reporting on it perhaps explains why. It sends a message that mental health is not seen as important and not a priority for investment.
“It is not acceptable that such a small amount of the public health purse goes on preventing mental health problems. Prevention is always better than cure and ignoring the problem simply doesn’t make sense.”
Responding to the Mind figures, the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing spokesperson Cllr Izzi Seccombe said: “The government (has) confirmed a £200 million reduction in the public health grant for 2015/16. Councils, who only took over responsibility for public health just over two years ago, cannot be expected to reverse decades of underinvestment in mental health spending by successive governments overnight. Local authorities have a finite budget and many competing health priorities.”