The chief executive of St Andrew’s Healthcare, which runs St Andrew’s Hospital in Northampton has questioned MPs about broken pledges on Government spending.
At a meeting at Westminster, Professor Philip Sugarman asked why NHS mental health expenditure has shrunk in the last year, despite the Government’s commitment to maintain mental health funding and the personal revelations about mental illness by sitting MPs in the House of Commons last September.
He added: “MPs should be praised for their support for mental healthcare. It is certainly true the traditional priorities in mental health may have to be challenged, but resources must be found for innovation and new priorities.
“St Andrew’s and many other national mental health groups are advocating new priorities in childhood prevention, early access to diagnosis and treatment, and greater use of specialist therapies.
“Our Parliamentary colleagues believe that the new NHS commissioning arrangements will address these challenges – we need to know how this will work in practice.”
Mental health experts attended the meeting to mark the publication of a collection of essays by MPs about their personal and professional experiences of a range of mental health issues.
It was organised by the national think-tank, the Centre for Mental Health, and speakers included Charles Walker, MP, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health, and Professor Sue Bailey, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
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