Mental health services will only improve if the government creates waiting time targets, health leaders have warned.
Experts say mental health services will remain “invisible” until the care is held to the same standard as NHS hospitals, which currently have stringent waiting list targets.
The warning comes as a new survey by NHS Alliance, shared with The Independent, found more than two-thirds of leaders within mental health are concerned by the quality of care being given to patients.
The NHS is currently required to see 95 per cent of patients within 18 weeks, and the government has pledged to reduce the number of patients waiting for hospital care. However, no equivalent aims have been set for mental health services despite around 1.8 million patients waiting for community treatment following a referral.
NHS Alliance is calling for a new four-week waiting time target for children to receive treatment for mental health.
There are currently more than half a million children waiting for mental health services in England. Of those, more than 165,000 have been waiting for more than two years, and 289,722 for over one year, analysis by the Royal College of Psychiatrists shows.
Speaking to The Independent, Rebecca Gray, chair of the NHS Alliance’s mental health network, said: “Having a target for how quickly a person should get access to mental health services is really important. It’s something I certainly welcome.
“I think that the mental healthcare system is happy to be held to the same standard over challenges and accountability as acute hospital partners are. Because if they’re not, then the issues become invisible.
“If you’ve got a child with an emerging eating disorder, it may be that you’re waiting six months, maybe longer, depending on how chronic the issues are.”
Ms Gray said the government is focussed on reducing hospital waits and improving A&E and ambulance waits, but that the challenges for patients waiting for mental healthcare are more “messy” and less clear to solve.
“The complexity and some of our uncertainty about what’s driving demand means that there is a little bit, some type of shying away, maybe from some of the challenges,” she added.
NHS Alliance’s survey of 50 mental health service leaders last month revealed 66 per cent believe they have tougher financial challenges in the year ahead compared to last year.
Around 95 per cent of those executives said they were concerned about increasing demand for mental healthcare, and 78 per cent said they were worried about meeting financial targets.
Leaders said they had “no investment for mental health community services [and] teams under-resourced to manage the increase in demand”.
Addressing the quality concerns, Ms Gray said while services were seeing more patients than ever, demand is growing, and that for services such as community mental health, this meant staff have more patients to care for, “so their ability to engage and spend real time working with patients and supporting them in the different ways that they need are under pressure.”
The Department for Health and Social Care was approached for comment.
