Written question WQ83242

NHS funding for mental health services is a ring-fenced allocation within a health board’s annual revenue allocations. It represents the minimum amount health boards should be spending on meeting the mental health needs of their population. Health boards are expected to meet any additional funding requirements for mental health services from their discretionary allocations for core services.

The distribution of the ring-fenced mental health allocation between health boards derives primarily from historic patterns of expenditure as the initial allocation was based on their reported mental health expenditure at the time the funding was ring-fenced. Since the initial allocation was ring-fenced, new growth and development funding has been added to the allocation using either the extant NHS allocation formula or a more specific basis of distribution for targeted funding.

Recently, officials have undertaken a review of the formula used to allocate new growth funding for mental health services. I am pleased to report on the results of this work. Engagement with a broad range of stakeholders has been a key factor to the development of the formula, conducted through a number of established forums and a cross organisational workshop. As a result, there was focussed consultation on the inclusion of the needs indicators which form the basis of the formula. These include mental health prevalence, employment and education data as well as regard for rurality and population demographics. The revised formula was used to allocate £14.6m new growth funding in the current financial year. Additionally £200,000 per health board has been provided from this year to support tier 0/1 (open access) mental health services.

The mental health ring-fenced funding allocation for 2021-22 is £726.8m – the single biggest area of spend in the NHS - and the distribution to health boards is shown in the table below:

Substantive response