The mental health strategy committed to by the Government is part way through its process, having concluded its call for evidence on 10 July. We, like many organisations, submitted our own response, which followed the lines of the guide we published in June.
As officials assess the multiple responses, and politicians adjust to new leadership over the coming months, we at Centre for Mental Health will focus on both what the strategy seeks to do, and the commitments it makes, as well as how the strategy will actually be implemented and have impact.
Strategies are quite common in Government, and there are multiple pitfalls, both political and practical, that can result in brilliant strategies not realising their potential. Much of this is beyond any one organisation’s or Government’s control, but there are factors which are within Government control which can maximise the chances of strategies being successfully implemented.
At the Centre, we wanted to be transparent about what we believe might be needed to improve the chances that the mental health strategy can make a meaningful change to the country’s mental health crisis. This is both for officials to know how we will assess the eventual strategy, but so partners can also see what we will be expecting of officials (and perhaps what they can demand too).
To be clear, this is not instead of the commitments that will be in the strategy itself. It will be what the Government commits to doing that is the most critical factor to success – for example, will there be specific interventions to prevent people reaching crisis? Will there be actual open-access support available to people who need it? Will the different experiences of marginalised communities actually be understood and addressed?
We all know that Governments commit to many brilliant things, but the means to deliver those commitments do not necessarily enable those commitments to be realised.
The ten key indications we will be looking for are the things we think will give us the greatest confidence that the strategy will be implemented and implemented well. But why these? In general terms, we know that for any strategy to be implemented effectively they need:
- Resources to ensure commitments are funded sustainably and the infrastructure and support to deliver them
- Tests and roles to ensure that the goals of any strategy can be applied to future decisions by Government, ensuring the strategy doesn’t become irrelevant quickly
- An openness and ability to explore emerging ideas (now and in the future), so we are not left with out-of-date commitments simply because they were what was most common and evidenced when the strategy was published
- A genuine cross-government effort, not just a strategy of one department, with meaningful accountability
- Measures to allow us all to transparently track if the strategy is being implemented and working.
There are always events beyond our control, some of which are unpredictable, that could make the job of the strategy much harder. But if these ten things are present, we have the best chance of the strategy weathering any future obstacles.
