(1) Let’s get to the bottom of this issue shall we @RalfLittle? I talked about the biggest expansion of mental health provision in Europe which you described as
‘knowingly lying’
‘knowingly lying’
2) Now I know you are a funny bloke and in politics a lot of insults are traded but the question is can you back up what is a very strong claim?
3) Parity of esteem for mental health became law in 2012, so here are the tables that show the 4,300 increase in staff at mental health trusts since 2013…
4) ....more than 2,000 of which are fully qualified (e.g. not the reduction of 167 in the fullfact piece you linked). digital.nhs.uk/media/32981/NH…
5) And here’s how we get the increase in talking therapies staff of over 2000, some of which will overlap with the trust figure because some IAPT services are provided by trusts (although many aren’t)…
6) ...The data we have takes us from 2012 uea.ac.uk/documents/2460… to 2015 england.nhs.uk/mentalhealth/w…
7) @ralflittle you pointed out that mental health nurses have gone down. This is correct, even though overall numbers working in mental health have gone up. Why? Because post Mid Staffs we realised…
8) ...there were too many hospital wards with dangerously low staffing so in the last five years have increased hospital nursing staff by almost 13,000. Whilst this has been good for hosps, it has been challenging for MH
9) So to fill the gap we now have 8,000 MH nurses in training and have this Sept announced an increase in nurse training places overall by 25% gov.uk/government/new…
10) You are correct that I did misread a briefing and tell the House of Commons that there was a 30,000 increase in mental health staff when I should have said a 30,000 increase in NHS clinical staff including in mental health…
11)....so I have corrected the record. But 12,700 more doctors and 10,600 more nurses on our wards since 2010, including 4,300 more MH staff since 2013 isn’t a bad thing surely? digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB3…
12) But ‘more’ mental health staff does NOT mean ‘enough’ staff and still too many patients wait too long. That’s why we published plans in July for an additional 21,000 posts hee.nhs.uk/our-work/perso…
13) My biggest area of concern is actually children and young people, because half of all conditions become established before the age of 14. So we will shortly be publishing a green paper on children and young people’s mental health to address this gov.uk/government/new…
14) What about the dosh? Extra staff cost money so this is what the data shows last year alone spending on mental health went up by £575m england.nhs.uk/mental-health/…
15)...with CCGs increasing spend by 6.3% vs an overall increase of 3.7% in their funding - in other words spending up both in absolute terms and as a proportion of NHS spend data.parliament.uk/writtenevidenc…
16) This has delivered some notable improvements in mental health in the last 7 years including the introduction of waiting times standards for psychosis and talking therapies for the first time anywhere in the world (with standards for eating disorders to follow)
17) The New York Times praised the expansion of talking therapies as “the world’s most ambitious effort to treat depression, anxiety and other common mental illnesses” nytimes.com/2017/07/24/hea…
18) We have also seen significant improvements in crisis care including the roll-out of liaison psychiatry to over 90% of A&Es, of which half are 24/7. This may have contributed to a 6% fall in suicide rates ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
19) But there is still MUCH more to do. In fact we are only two years in to a five year plan that will see us treating a million more people by 2020/21 compared to when we started. Here’s the plan england.nhs.uk/wp-content/upl…
20) Now let’s remind ourselves of your claim, that when I said this was the biggest expansion of mental health provision in Europe I ‘knowingly lied’. Here’s the tweet:
21) Perhaps you can see from the facts above why both I and the NHS England Chief Exec DO believe this is the biggest expansion of mental health provision in Europe… 
22) More on this here
23) There may be a European country with bigger expansion plans but I have yet to find it. I am sure I don’t get everything right but on the basis of the evidence no reasonable person could describe the claim as “knowingly lying’
24) So let’s do a deal: you provide me with evidence that I was – as you claim – deliberately seeking to mislead the public about mental health in my Marr interview & I will happily meet you, factcheckers and all
25) Frankly anyone who has got this far in the thread deserves a medal for endurance and resilience not least because I am nothing like as witty as @ralflittle...
26) .... I hope you understand that in the rough and tumble of Twitter sometimes we have to put the record straight! I therefore apologise for this interminably long thread and promise this will be my final tweet on the issue.
