Select committee: Health and Social Care Committee

Recommendation 25

4th Report - Community Mental Health Services Published 2 Dec 2025 Addressed to Department of Health and Social Care
Recommendation (the committee's words)
In order for the neighbourhood pilots to realise the potential of the innovative model of care they are trialling, the Government should support the pilot sites to address challenges with digital interoperability, for example through sharing of learning and best practise. These learnings should then be collated to support future systems to implement the model, in the event of future scaling-up. (Recommendation, Paragraph 169)

From: Health and Social Care Committee, 4th Report - Community Mental Health Services (HC 566), 2 December 2025

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 11 March 2026 (deadline 2 February 2026).

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The government's response to the committee's report accepts some recommendations, partially accepts others and does not accept others, and sets out a wider programme of mental health reform.

  • On a 24/7 neighbourhood centre in every community, the government "partially accepts", saying it "will look at the outcome of the pilots carefully" and will make available capital funding of £473 million over 4 years for new models.
  • It does not accept the call for an independent evaluation of the Community Mental Health Framework, pointing to learning already shared by NHS England and to monitoring through the national mental health services dataset.
  • It accepts the recommendation on the Modern Service Framework for severe mental illness, saying "we will confirm timelines for publication in due course".
  • On legislating for the Mental Health Investment Standard, it partially accepts but says "We will not be making further legislative changes in relation to mental health spending at this time."

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error