Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a mechanism to ring-fence mental health funding.

Nicola Blackwood

Funding decisions legitimately rest with clinical commissioning groups as the appropriate accountable organisations to their local populations.

Nevertheless, 2016-17 NHS England planning guidance states that funding allocations may be retracted, if there is evidence that additional mental health allocations are not being used for the purpose for which they were intended.

The Mandate to NHS England in 2016-17 sets a clear objective that, in order “to close the health gap for people of all ages, we want to see a system-wide transformation in children and young people’s mental health”.

Clinical commissioning groups are required to increase their spending on mental health each year at least in line with the growth in their overall funding allocations.