More immediately, the Centre for Mental Health and other bodies told us that, in the face of funding pressures and the need to reduce backlogs for physical health services, ICBs and ICPs could struggle to prioritise mental health services and support, and potentially even place some of the recent progress made in jeopardy.36 When questioned, NHSE assured us there is no doubt that “mental health services will remain an absolute priority” for the NHS, and that it has a number of mechanisms in place to ensure that this is the case for ICBs, for example, the mental health investment standard for improving the share of local funding for mental health services.37