Big discrepancies in spending revealed

Mental health spending varies hugely around the country, even when the different costs of providing services and levels of need are accounted for, research has found.

The King’s Fund think-tank said this week that spending per head by Islington and Derbyshire Dales and South Derbyshire primary care trusts was four times greater than that by Bracknell Forest and North Eastern Derbyshire PCTs in 2004-5.

In total, 14 of the existing 303 PCTs spent less than £100 a person, once spending had been adjusted for cost and need, while 13 spent more than £200 a person.

PCTs spent an average of 11 per cent of their budgets on mental health, more than any of 20 other disease areas on which they are required to collect spending information.

And 9.3 per cent of the increase in PCT budgets between 2003-4 and 2004-5 went on mental health, compared with 9.2 per cent on heart disease and 7.7 per cent on cancer.