§ Mr. HarveyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what the expenditure on mental health services as a proportion of total NHS spending has been in each year since 1979; and if he will make a statement. [148082]
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§ Mr. HuttonThe expenditure on mental health services as a proportion of total National Health Service spending for each year between 1988–89 to 1998–99 is given in the table. Information prior to this date is not available. While health and community health services spending on mental health as a proportion of total spend has remained fairly constant, expenditure by local councils on mental health as a proportion of their total spend on social services have risen steadily.
year HCHS gross expenditure on mental health as a percentage of total expenditure 1988–89 12.5 1989–90 12.34 1990–91 12.07 1991–92 11.58 1992–93 11.56 1993–94 11.00 1994–95 10.69 1995–96 10.65 1996–97 12.21 1997–98 12.26 1998–99 12.08 1. The NHS expenditure information is based on profiles of expenditure provided by trusts but scaled to match health authorities total expenditure. Thus, there is a possibility that the figures under-estimate the expenditure on services purchased by health authorities from the private and voluntary sectors. It may be the case that hospital expenditure is over-estimated and community expenditure is under-estimated. These figures exclude Health Authority overheads.
2. In 1996–97 the data collection methodology changed. Therefore, figures from 1996–97 onwards are not directly comparable to figures up to and including 1995–96
3. From 1994–95 costs include care management, which cannot be identified for earlier years.
4. All figures exclude administrative and clerical overheads.