Writing a new story for mental health
Vanessa Ford, Chief Executive, South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust
The new NHS 10 Year Plan offers us the opportunity to rewrite the mental health story.
The plan brings promise - and challenge - for mental health care. Its vision to shift from hospital to community, sickness to prevention, and analogue to digital is ambitious. The challenge now lies in delivery, hand in hand with the people it's designed to help.
But with deep-rooted health inequalities, rising demand, stretched funding, and aging estates, it’s also time to write a new chapter.
One where anti-racism is central, the Mental Health Investment Standard gets serious attention, prevention leads, and our mental health estate is welcoming, modern, and stigma-breaking.
Invest in recovery
Mental illness is one of the biggest drivers of economic inactivity. But investment works: £1 in brings up to £14 in returns. In one London borough alone, employment support embedded in Wandsworth Talking Therapies now helps over 500 people a year into work.
Mental health investment isn’t just good for patient care - it’s good economic sense. And as anchor institutions, our Trusts’ long-term sustainability is tied in so many ways to the wellbeing of our local populations.
Prevention, closer to home
World Mental Health Day’s upcoming theme of emergency access reminds us how vital timely crisis support is. At the same time, we know how important it is to do more in the community to prevent people falling into crisis in the first place.
Community mental health services are already evolving - working with housing, social care, and welfare to support people holistically. This must now go further.
Neighbourhood Health Teams and integrated care can take early intervention to the next level, bringing help even closer to home.
Better environments to break stigma
Our outdated mental health estates have too often reinforced mental health stigma - separating services from society and creating barriers to access. Lord Darzi called it out, and he was right.
In South West London, we have transformed Springfield Hospital’s Victorian estate into Springfield Village with 1,200 new homes, shops, cafes, world-class mental health facilities and new 32-acre park, opened in July by the Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan. A once-closed site is now open, inviting, and part of the community.
This has changed not just care, but how it feels to visit a mental health hospital - for patients, staff, and neighbours alike.
Put anti-racism at the centre
Black British people remain the least likely to receive treatment - and far more likely to be detained in restrictive inpatient settings or placed on Community Treatment Orders. Progress has been slow. This must change.
The delivery of the 10 Year Plan must put racial equity at its core. Systemic barriers have long led to worse access, experiences and outcomes for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Enough is enough.
Let this be the decade
This is a moment of real opportunity. The NHS 10 Year Plan gives us a strong foundation - but only if we act boldly.
By investing wisely, putting prevention first, and confronting stigma and reducing health inequalities, we can finally deliver a fairer, more inclusive mental health system - one rooted in and shaped by the communities we serve.
