BPS calls on government to prioritise investment in mental health support for health and care staff in Autumn Statement

We're calling on the government to make the NHS central to its spending plans in its Autumn Statement, and provide vital long-term funding for mental health and wellbeing support for health and social care staff.

With the growing workforce crisis in the NHS, and staff under unprecedented strain and burnout, the need for dedicated mental health support for staff across the NHS and social care has never been higher.

The NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan has placed responsibility for investment in staff mental health and wellbeing provision with integrated care boards from April 2024. However the BPS is urging ministers to properly support integrated care boards to meet the needs of all NHS staff by providing complementary ring-fenced funding to provide access to dedicated high quality mental health and wellbeing services. 

Stark new data shared with the BPS by one of the remaining NHS Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hubs, shows 404 people registered with the hub for one-to-one support between July 2023 and September 2023 – a 65 per cent increase on the same period in the previous year (245 referrals).

Shockingly, more than half of those referrals (51 per cent) said they were thinking about harming themselves or being better off dead several days a week, more than half of the week, or every day*. One in five of those accessing one-to-one support identified as senior leaders.  

This is indicative of the national picture with new data from NHS Digital revealing that mental health** as a reason for all sickness absence rose from 23.3 per cent in January 2023 to 27.4 per cent in June 2023, accounting for nearly 3 million full time equivalent days lost.         

Dr Roman Raczka, President-Elect of the British Psychological Society, said:

"Staff are the lifeblood of the NHS, and these recent figures highlight exactly why there continues to be an urgent need for high-quality, dedicated psychological support for health and care staff.

"The severity of the figures from the NHS Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub in particular make for devastating reading, and sadly, are likely indicative of the picture across the country.

"Staff of all levels of seniority are seeking help with increasingly severe mental health problems, and it's vital they have rapid access to the psychological support they need to help them back into work, and remain in their roles.

"However, the instability of ICS finances is a significant risk for the adequate provision of dedicated mental health support for NHS and social care staff, particularly against competing priorities - despite the evidenced benefits.

"The success of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is highly dependent upon the health and wellbeing of staff, but this won't happen without significant, long-term investment in mental health support, which is why we're urging the government to commit to additional funding to complement local investment."

In our submission to the Treasury for the Autumn Statement, we've also highlighted the need for further resource to create and implement national service standards, metrics and evaluation for staff mental health provision, alongside increased investment in training for health and care management in creating a psychologically safe work environment, as well as diversity and cultural competency training.

* 51% in Q2 are scoring 1,2,3 (several days, more than half days or nearly every day) on the measure depression severity PHQ9 and said they are thinking about harming themselves or are better off dead

** Mental health reasons refers to the NHS sickness absence rates data reasons Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses