Thousands more workers to start mental healthcare ‘revolution’

THE mental health workforce is to gain 21,000 new people, who will treat an extra million patients a year, to help deliver Theresa May’s promised “revolution” in the sector, the Government has announced.

Jeremy Hunt has revealed his plan to redress the “historic imbalance” between physical and mental health by 2021. Shortages in mental healthcare have led to an increase in patients being treated miles from home. The Health Secretary is promising roundthe-clock, integrated psychiatric services for the first time, including an additional 4,600 specially trained nurses working in crisis centres.

Around 2,000 new staff, made up of nurses, consultants and therapists, will be dedicated to child and adolescent mental health, while nearly 3,000 posts are to be created for adult therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy for people with depression. Health leaders welcomed the plan, but said it would only work if methods were found to limit the high attrition rate of staff working in mental health.

The Government will attempt to lure back some of the 4,000 psychiatrists and 30,000 trained mental health nurses no longer practising in the NHS, as well as encouraging more GPS to undergo psychiatric training. A campaign will also be launched encouraging more trainee doctors to specialise in mental health. “We want people with mental health conditions to receive better treatment, and part of that means having the right NHS staff,” said Mr Hunt. “We know we need to do much more to attract, retain and support the mental health workforce of the future. Today is the first step to address this historic imbalance in workforce planning.”

Parity of esteem, the principle by which mental and physical health are given equal priority, has been a legal duty in the NHS since 2013, but in many areas the reality has not matched the ambition.

Last month, new figures showed almost 6,000 mental health patients had to be sent out of their local area in 2016, a 40 per cent rise in two years.

Meanwhile, the Care Quality Commission recently criticised the current “Victorian” approach to mental health, revealing that 3,500 patients are being locked up in secure wards when they should be receiving treatment.

The new posts will be funded from an extra £1 billion package for mental health up to 2020 announced by David Cameron in January 2016.

21,000 The number of new mental health posts Jeremy Hunt will create. They will be asked to treat a million extra patients a year