Mental health funds crisis claim

Mental health services across the country are facing a funding crisis, a charity has claimed.

On Wednesday Rethink revealed "worrying cuts" in mental health budgets.

These include plans to cut £3m over three years in Cambridgeshire and proposals to close nine mental health services in Suffolk to help save £5m.

The Health Department said mental health was a key priority and more than a billion pounds extra had been invested to improve the service.

Rethink, one of the largest mental health charities in the UK, is calling for an investigation into mental health funding after hearing the concerns of its workers.

'Staff concern at cuts'

The charity's chief executive, Cliff Prior, said: "Rethink has been gathering evidence recently about very worrying cuts in mental health budgets this year across the country.

"Any such cuts to already stretched budgets would have serious implications for those people directly affected by mental health problems - service users and carers."

A spokeswoman for Rethink said that as well as Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, its staff were aware of mental health funding cuts in the Isle of Wight, Somerset, Devon, London, Cumbria and Oxfordshire.

A spokesperson for Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust announced earlier this year that it needed to save £5m and planned to provide more home care.

A consultation process is looking at the closure of nine mental health services including day centres for adults with learning disabilities.

On Wednesday Mark Halladay, chief executive of the Partnership, told BBC News that the need for savings would help the Trust "reinvest in our new services - such as crisis resolution services and home reach".

"The downside is that there will be a number of people that we will not be able to provide the same services to, which we have in the past. Some will get support from the voluntary sector and other organisations," he said.

Consulting local people

A spokeswoman for the Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust (CPCT) said the millions were needed partly because a new funding formula is moving resources away from relatively affluent areas such as Cambridge while at the same time the city's population is increasing.

The spokeswoman said the Trust was consulting local people over possible ways to save the £3m.

Measures could include closing mental health wards and reducing services provided by the Trust.

In Cumbria there have been concerns that Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust is considering closing two mental health wards at Kendal's Westmoreland General Hospital.

It aims to save money by switching resources to community care.

A health service spokeswoman told the BBC: "The current funding arrangements mean that primary care trusts are allocated resources on the basis of the relative needs of their populations.

"It is for PCTs in partnership with strategic health authorities and other local stakeholders to determine how best to use their funds to meet national and local priorities for improving health, tackling health inequalities and modernising services."