§ 27. Mr. Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will make a statement on the current level of funding for the care in the community of the mentally ill.
§ Mr. WhitneySuch care is provided both by health authorities and by local authorities. The form of National Health Service costing returns does not allow us to make an accurate estimate of the proportion of the total current expenditure on mental illness services by health authorities (about £960 million in 1983/84) which is attributable to community care. For example, we are aware that psychiatrists and other staff are increasingly spending time in the community at locations such as health centres, but the relevant salary and associated costs cannot be identified separately, except for grades of staff working wholly in the community. However, we estimate that in 1983–84 expenditure on psychiatric out-patient care, day-patient care and care by community psychiatric nurses totalled some £150 million.
Details of total spending by the social services departments of local authorities on care of mentally ill people in the community are not available for similar reasons, but expenditure in 1984–85 on two of the main elements is estimated to have been some £18 million on day care and £21 million on residential care. These figures do not include the cost of time spent by approved social workers and other social workers on the care of mentally ill people, since this, too, is not separately identified; and the figure for expenditure on residential care does not include the cost of a large number of mildly or more seriously demented people cared for in local authorities' homes for the elderly, as distinct from their homes for mentally ill people. Separate figures are not available for other local authorities—for example, housing—costs; for social security expenditure; or for employment and training services and so on.