These documents provide the background and strategic direction for mental health care, including national frameworks and underpinning approaches.

Local Government: Best value
Local Implementation Plans, self assessment and service mapping
Mental Health Service Provision for Working Age Adults in England 2002
The NHS plan
Recovery and Change: Modernising Mental Health, NIMHE Annual Report and Strategic Plan 2003/04-2005/06

Local Government: Best value

Local councils have been required, since April 2000, to develop Best Value performance plans and to review all their services over a five-year period applying Best Value principles. The Social Services Inspectorate at the Department of Health (SSI) and the Joint Review team have inspected the quality of Best Value reviews of social care as part of our inspection programmes.

The SSI has held regular discussions with a representative of the Association of Directors for Social Services in order to share experience. Many councils have struggled to implement Best Value effectively. At the Association of Directors of Social Services' (ADSS) request the SSI has published a report to bring together the key messages learned about the effective use of Best Value to improve social care services.

Download the report

Local Implementation Plans, self assessment and service mapping

Chief executives of health authorities, local authorities and NHS trusts and directors of social services have established local implementation teams (LITs) (made up of health and social care providers, commissioners, health authorities, voluntary sector, users and carers) to translate national standards and service models into local delivery plans. Since 1999, LITs have been required to develop local implementation plans based on local needs assessments for meeting NSF and NHS Plan objectives. LITs now undertake annual self-assessments against a set of new indicators, and annual service mapping exercises with, in 2002, a financial mapping exercise. These plans will be reflected in health improvement programmes, joint investment plans, service and financial frameworks, long term service arrangements, and clinical governance arrangements from April 2000. Between April and October 2001 they undertook a comprehensive review of mental health services in preparation for the implementation of the new service models as set out in the NHS Plan.

Download NSF Mental Health Service Monitoring – Self Assessment Results Autumn 2001

Mental Health Service Provision for Working Age Adults in England 2002

This atlas reports the findings of the 2002 Mental Health Service Mapping exercise undertaken by the Centre for Public Mental Health at the University of Durham. It draws together information about both health and social care mental health services provided in the statutory and independent sectors and organised by a range of administrative areas (eg LIT, StHA, PCT).

The exercise was set up in 2000 as part of the process of monitoring the implementation of the mental health NSF in England but the resulting national database of services has many other uses and is a source of information for service planners, managers, practitioners and users.

Copies of the Atlas are available from NIMHE. Email: [email protected]
The live database is accessible to anyone at www.durham.ac.uk/service.mapping/amh/

The NHS Plan

Published on 27 July 2000, the NHS Plan sets out the Government's plans for investment and reform. The Plan provides extra annual investment for mental health of over £300m by 2003-04 to fast-forward the Mental Health National Service Framework. It builds on the extra investment already committed in April 2001 which has provided:

• almost 500 extra secure beds
• over 320 24-hour staffed beds
• 170 assertive outreach teams
• access to services 24 hours a day, seven days a week for all those with complex mental health needs.

Download a summary of the plan in pdf format here
Go to the full NHS Plan: http://www.doh.gov.uk/nhsplan

Recovery and Change: Modernising Mental Health, NIMHE Annual Report and Strategic Plan 2003/04-2005/06

NIMHE’s three strategic aims have been launched in the publication Recovery and Change – Mental Health in the Mainstream:

• system transformation
• workforce development
• changes in practice.

Download Strategy