15.12.14
New standards to bring mental health in line with other services – Monitor
Foundation trusts will be regulated according to how well they meet new government targets for accessing mental health services being introduced in 2015, Monitor has announced.
The regulator will use the Risk Assessment Framework (RAF), which will include extra mental health targets, to assess trusts.
Monitor is consulting on adding indicators to help it regulate trusts that provide ‘high secure’ services for mental health, which can now apply for FT status following a change in the law last year.
The consultation, which runs until 18 February, will consult on the following updates to RAF:
- introducing access measures for mental health services as proxies of governance
- introducing access and outcome measures for providers of high secure and medium secure mental health services as proxies of governance
- additional triggers for investigating financial risk at a provider to help ensure early identification and intervention for continuity of services risks.
Most national access targets have focused on acute providers and include A&E waiting times, referral-for-treatment waiting times and cancer referral targets. In mental health, however, the number of indicators that could be used as proxies of governance has been limited by a lack of existing standards.
“The proposed changes we are now consulting on reflect the government’s decision to introduce new mental health access standards,” said Monitor.
In early October 2014, the government announced two new access targets for mental health with a strong commitment to rolling out across the sector in 2015-16:
- Two-week wait for receiving treatment from the early intervention in psychosis (EIP) programme. Providers will be required to treat 50% of patients within two weeks by April 2016.
- Referral-to-treatment target for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). Providers will be required to see 75% of patients within 6 weeks and 95% of patients within 18 weeks from April 2015.
The regulator stated “we consider these access targets for mental health can have a similar function to the access targets we use as proxies for governance at acute providers”.
Stephen Hay, Monitor’s managing director of provider regulation, said: “Tackling mental health problems can be extremely time-sensitive. We know for example that early treatment of psychosis can dramatically improve chances of recovery.
“These important changes to the way we regulate foundation trusts build on our work to bring mental health standards more in line with the way we regulate other services.”
If foundation trusts materially or consistently fail these targets for three quarters in a year, however, Monitor will treat it as a possible indication of wider problems with how a trust is being run, and will consider whether the trust may be in breach of its licence. This could lead to an investigation or further action, in the same way as if patients are consistently waiting too long in A&E.
Foundation trusts will be required to report whether they meet the new government standards on a quarterly basis. The updated RAF will come into force in April 2015.
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