2
Rejected
Lack of continuity of care fragments support for people with severe mental illness
Recommendation
Continuity of care is a necessity for people with severe mental illness. It is essential to the delivery of high-quality care. When it is present, it prevents crisis, builds trust, and supports recovery. When it is absent, it fragments support, burdens families, and puts lives at risk. This continuity must be built into the design of mental health services, not left to chance. At the moment it is too easy for people to fall out of care, in some cases being discharged when there is a need for ongoing support. The approach to providing continuity of care must reflect the enduring nature of SMIs and the impact this has on people’s lives. (Conclusion, Paragraph 39)
Government Response Summary
The government rejected the recommendation for specific actions to ensure continuity of care, stating they are already implementing the community mental health framework through early implementor sites and monitoring service performance, with further assessment planned for the MSF on SMI.
Government Response
Rejected
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The government does not accept this recommendation. Between 2019 and 2021, 12 ‘early implementor’ sites were selected to pilot putting the community mental health framework into practice as well as to develop and share learning on implementation. Each site received funding to evaluate their transformation so that learning could be shared with all systems. NHS England developed and shared an evaluation report based upon this learning to coincide with all systems receiving transformation funding from April 2021. Since then, NHS England has continued to work closely with all systems to identify and share learning, as well as developing a range of resources designed to support the implementation of the vision set out in the community mental health framework. Every local system will have taken the vision of the framework and applied it to their unique circumstances, taking into consideration varied local contexts and the complexity of the transformation described which involves integration with primary care, VCSFE organisations and local authorities. We continue to monitor the performance of community mental health services through the national mental health services dataset. This has shown a substantial increase in rates of access to community mental health services as systems implement the vision set out in the framework. Alongside rates of access, NHS England continues to work with systems to improve the quality of patient reported outcome reporting in services. Ultimately improvements in patient outcomes will be the best measure of the impact of new models of care. As part of developing the MSF on SMI, we will be assessing the evidence and engaging with stakeholders to understand what lessons can be learnt from implementation of the community mental health framework. This will include which strategies and interventions have been most effective as well as the barriers to delivering good practice care.
Source
Committee
Health and Social Care Committee
Inquiry
Community Mental Health Services
Report
4th Report - Community Mental Health Services
02 Dec 2025
HC 566
Addressee Bodies
Department of Health and Social Care
Timeline
Recommendation age
0.7 yr
Report published
02 Dec 2025