Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted in Part
Publish and implement urgent national access and waiting time standards for integrated care.
Recommendation
We heard that one way to track progress on integration would be through the establishment of national access and waiting time standards. The absence of national standards contributes to inconsistent access and undermines parity with physical health. NHS England should publish and implement these standards as a matter of urgency. (Recommendation, Paragraph 120)
Government response summary AI-generated
The government partially accepts, committing to requiring ICBs to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard and publishing a new Mental Service Specification for SMI to ensure clinical consistency. However, they will not make further legislative changes regarding mental health spending and do not commit to publishing national access and waiting time standards.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted in Part
The government partially accepts this recommendation. Improving access and reducing waiting times for mental health services is essential to achieving equality with physical health and ensuring people receive timely, high- quality care wherever they live. National access and waiting time standards are an important mechanism for driving consistency, transparency and accountability across the system. NHS England has already introduced standards for some services, such as access to NHS Talking Therapies and early intervention in psychosis. Work is underway to extend these to a broader range of mental health pathways, including community mental health services for children and adults. Data on waiting times for NHS-funded community mental health and urgent and emergency care is now routinely published and, whilst no standard has yet been set for community mental health services, the medium term planning framework requires providers to eliminate waits of over 2 years for children and young people community mental health services by the end of the 2026 to 2027 financial year.
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