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Stephen Dalton, chief executive of the Mental Health Network, responded to today’s King’s Fund briefing Mental health under pressure.
 
"The King's Fund report is a helpful and timely contribution. It exposes the institutional bias that exists in the NHS and Local Authorities when it comes to funding for mental health. Much of this is well known to policy makers and politicians and despite the rhetoric about giving equal importance to physical and mental health this hasn't translated into any new money. 

"On the contrary, funding for mental health services has gone down. Many commissioners of NHS services don’t have the capacity to do the right thing and fund what works. If this government is serious about prioritising mental health they need to ensure new funding gets directly to providers of care and not channelled through layers of bureaucracy where it is lost."

View briefing:

http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_publication_file/mental-health-under-pressure-nov15.pdf