The Association of Clinical Psychologists UK Community Interest Company (ACP-UK CIC) welcomes the Budget statement that funding for mental health services will grow as a share of the overall NHS budget over the next 5 years. We welcome the decision to allocate up to £250 million a year by 2023-24 to new crisis services.

However we share the widely expressed anxiety that even this additional money may be insufficient to train and employ the extra staff needed to fulfil the plans.

We are also concerned that the policy should be fully implemented in the devolved administrations (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). For example, in Northern Ireland funding of mental health services has historically been lower, and continues to be lower, than in the other nations of the UK, despite higher levels of need.

Clinical psychologists are trained to understand and work with the multiple causes of distress, many of which are social and relational, such as poverty and discrimination.

Clinical psychologists have a special interest in and contributions to make to the plans for: children and young people’s crisis teams in every part of the country, comprehensive mental health support in every major A&E department, and improved support to help those with severe mental illness who are well enough to find and retain employment. Clinical psychologists, who are professionals with specialist postgraduate training in applying the achievements of psychological research to health and social care, have been in the forefront of developing the new approaches to the formulation of need and techniques of therapy which make those plans possible. We question the priority that is being given to funding responses to mental health crises over investment in prevention and early interventions to avoid crises. Nonetheless we anticipate that clinical psychologists will play a significant role in the leadership, management and support of the intended developments.

For example, in England clinical psychologists are working in crisis intervention teams, psychiatric liaison teams and RAID rapid assessment interface and discharge teams delivering therapy and doing indirect work with staff. In the East Midlands clinical psychologists have been responding to increasing requests from staff working in A&E departments to support reflective practice, cope with the emotional and personal demands of high impact clinical encounters, work better together as a team in challenging and stressful situations, and reduce the incidence of the sickness absence and ‘burnout’ which undermines the efficiency of A&E services.

Bernard Kat & Arabella Kurtz, ACP-UK Directors