Whole systems approach to keep people out of hospital

IBI Healthcare+ is currently developing a diagram which identifies the key characteristics of our cities, our people, and our healthcare services. We are using this to help identify opportunities to promote wellbeing and deliver better and more cost-effective care.

The barriers between mental, physical, and social care providers and third sector organisations are likely to blur, if not dissolve, if the vision behind Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) is realised. The Government has also made a commitment to parity of esteem between mental and physical health, but what this requires on the ground is a long way off being widely understood. There are very significant financial and logistical hurdles in the way for all parties, but people with mental health conditions will need particularly strong advocates if their urgent case is to be heard above the clatter of failing acute services and competition with funding for more glamorous medical interventions.

The portents are not good. In its recent report, the charity, Mind, reported that local authorities spend less than one per cent of their public health budget on mental health, and that, rather than increasing, the figure is decreasing year on year. Mind’s chief executive, Paul Farmer, is quoted as saying: ‘The current spend on mental health initiatives is negligible; this can’t continue. It undermines the government’s commitment to giving mental health equality with physical health. Prevention is always better than cure, and ignoring the problem simply doesn’t make sense.’