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Mental health system reform

The Mental Health System reform agenda has a core objective of delivering better health and social care for all, and better value for money through the achievement of self-improving Mental Health Service and Local Authorities landscape.

There are four elements to the reform system which when taken collectively provide the levers to deliver significant improvements in quality and productivity and to enable service redesign towards earlier intervention and prevention. The four elements are:

  • Transactional reforms: money following the patients, rewarding the best and most efficient providers giving others the incentive to improve.
  • Demand side reform: More choice and a much stronger voice for patients.
  • Supply side reform: More diverse providers with more freedom to innovate and improve services.
  • System Management reform: A framework of system management regulation and decision making which guarantees safety and quality, fairness, equity and value for money.

Mental Health System Reform exists to oversee the system reform agenda as this applied to mental health services. This is necessary as the various elements of system reform in the main have been applied to physical health care and there were acknowledged differences in mental health, not least the enduring nature of the conditions for many service users, and the added dimension of joint commissioning with local authorities.

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