- Conference
- 2025 National Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 4 December 2024
- Decision
- Carried
This conference notes that until recently, we’ve had fourteen years of a Tory government. Its ideological austerity has had a devastating impact on our NHS, from systemic underfunding, years of pay restraints and creeping privatisation. Consequently, we have seen NHS services and staff come under severe strain, with a big loss of both experienced staff and essential services. Some research has also linked excess deaths to NHS and social care cuts.
Mental health services have always been the ‘poor relation’ compared to physical health service funding, so these services have particularly struggled in both community and in-patient services. More than one in four people in UK experience devastating mental health crisis. These numbers are increasing in the general population and amongst health workers.
Unfortunately, the Tory government did not adequately invest in NHS mental health services, either in primary or community care. Primary mental health services and ongoing support in our communities can prevent the need for expensive secondary care services. In Greater Manchester, for instance, the situation is especially dire and there is a growing crisis. Mental health services across Greater Manchester are suffering from £90 million of under-investment, according to an ‘independent diagnostic’ commissioned by Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (GM ICB) in 2023. This concluded that there was a huge shortfall compared to elsewhere in the UK. Per capita, the mental health spend in Manchester falls short of national averages by approx. 50%. This is totally unacceptable.
Despite this, GM ICB has been told by NHS England that they have an £180m financial deficit. So, they have agreed to make substantial cost savings over a 3-year period to eliminate this deficit. It’s crucial we resist any cuts to staffing or services.
We are also seeing increased privatisation in our NHS, which diverts much needed funding away from NHS services. The Integrated Care Systems (which oversee our local health and care services) allows private health care companies to have a big say in where NHS funding goes. This leads to uncoordinated, profit driven and often un-unionised services that cannot address the crisis in mental health services. Moreover, the profit motive can mean private providers cut corner and have no incentive to discharge patients in hospital or to provide supportive but costly after- care community services.
This conference believes having access to high quality, properly funded and timely mental health services is essential. It makes humanitarian and economic sense, as it avoids the trauma and devastation mental ill health can bring (especially when severe) and a psychologically well population is much more able to work and function. All our NHS mental health services need to be fully funded so they can provide the high-quality services people require at the earliest opportunity. This will save money and prevent many people from needing expensive secondary care services when they become acutely unwell.
This conference calls on the HSGE to:
1. prioritise campaigning, lobbying, and making the case for adequate mental health NHS funding and NHS run services.
2. To approach Unison’s Labour Link and encourage them to support this campaign.