NHS England has U-turned on plans to cut funding for a mental health support service following strong criticism from the profession, and will allow new registrations from hospital clinicians for another year.
Earlier this month, the NHS Practitioner Health service said NHS England was ‘undertaking a review’ for the support offer across all NHS staff groups, to consider ‘long term sustainable options’.
This meant that the service would not accept any new registrations from secondary care staff from 15 April, but would continue to treat existing patients, with new patients being ‘signposted’ to other services such as their GP, it said.
Justifying the decision, NHS England chief strategy officer Chris Hopson said the ‘vast majority’ of mental health support for NHS staff ‘is, and always has been, via their employer’s health and wellbeing schemes’.
However, the decision was strongly criticised by doctors, including the BMA and the Doctors’ Association UK, who said it was ‘short-sighted’ and ‘cruel’.
Now, NHS England has agreed to ‘extend the service’ for secondary care health professionals by 12 months while a review is carried out.
It confirmed that the service will remain in place for GPs and other primary care staff for another 12 months until the end of March next year.
NHS England chief workforce officer Dr Navina Evans said: ‘Following discussions with Practitioner Health on their current service for secondary care doctors, dentists and senior staff, we have jointly agreed to extend the service by 12 months, for both existing and new service users, while we carry out a wider review to ensure that all NHS staff groups have the mental health support they need.’
Professor Dame Clare Gerada, an ambassador for NHS Practitioner Health who is also a GP, said she was ‘delighted’ that the extension was agreed and that the service will ‘work closely’ with NHS England on the review.
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has welcomed the announcement and said it will ‘take an active interest in [the new review] process, recommending that any new solution must be either equal to or better than the current situation‘.
The RCP added: ‘All NHS staff groups must have the mental health support they need.‘
NHS Practitioner Health provides mental health and addiction support for healthcare professionals so that they are able to remain in, or return safely to, work.
According to figures for 2022/23, 6,741 new patients registered with the service, with average registrations per month at 562, up from 225 before the pandemic.
Prior to the reversal of the decision, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), Professor Dame Gerada said: ‘To remind, [NHS Practitioner Health] was established following suicide of a psychiatrist who also killed her baby and highlighted the barriers doctors have in accessing mental health care.’
She added: ‘I am so proud of the 32,000 doctors/dentists/nurses/paramedics/and others who have sought our help.‘
BMA workforce lead Dr Latifa Patel said doctors are ‘more burnt-out’ than ever‘, and described NHS England’s withdrawal of funding as a ‘short-sighted financial decision with potentially harmful consequences for both doctors and patients’.
She added: ‘We need to have assurances that its review of services will lead to equal or better provision of mental health support in the future.’
In December 2023, a report from the British Psychological Society called for priority long-term investment in NHS staff mental health and wellbeing.
An earlier survey showed that health professionals ranked work-related stress, workload intensity and staffing levels as the primary ‘push factors’ underpinning decisions to leave the NHS.
A version of this story was originally published by our sister publication Pulse.
