Commenting on the Chancellor’s final Budget of this Parliament, Ruth Thorlby, Senior Fellow in Health Policy at the Nuffield Trust, said
“The investment announced today in children’s and maternal mental health services is much needed and long overdue. We warned last year that there were real concerns about several key indicators of quality in this area, including the rise in children being sent out of their home regions for treatment.
“But we must remember that all parts of the health service are struggling to meet demand and maintain quality under the financial strain of the last five years. What’s more, it is likely that the NHS will face extremely ambitious efficiency targets over the next five years, which will require significant changes to the way services are currently run.
The investment announced today in children’s and maternal mental health services is much needed and long overdue.
Ruth Thorlby, Deputy Director of Policy, Nuffield Trust
“This Budget does not give patients and NHS staff any certainty about wider funding plans up to 2020. Yet that is the timescale on which NHS England, rightly, thinks spending must be committed in order to drive improvement and maintain quality”.
“Meanwhile, the Chancellor’s wider plans for public service cuts mean no immediate prospect of the bleak funding outlook for social care being reversed either.”