The Association of Mental Health Providers welcomes the publication of the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan and the introduction of the Neighbourhood Health Service. The shift toward prevention and community-based support, alongside renewed commitments to mental health, represents a necessary and long-overdue direction for reform. It offers a vital opportunity to reframe how we deliver care and support in England – from reactive to preventative, from institutional to local, from service-centred to person-centred.

We are encouraged to see that mental health is woven throughout the Plan in principle – with commitments to self-referral through the NHS App, the establishment of 85 new mental health emergency departments, 24/7 access to support, and the piloting of Neighbourhood Mental Health Centres. These signal progress and reflect priorities long championed by our members and the wider mental health voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector.

However, the ambitions outlined must be met with structural and sustained action. The Plan offers a direction of travel, but unless met with immediate investment, a cross-sector workforce strategy, and deeper integration of community-based models, it risks replicating existing inequalities in new settings. At its heart, the Plan must recognise that mental health is not a peripheral issue – it is the golden thread that runs through every aspect of health and care. It intersects with housing, education, criminal justice, employment, and community safety. To treat it as anything less than foundational is to limit the potential of this Plan before it begins.

The Government’s welcome emphasis on rebalancing care away from hospitals is undercut by the absence of upfront capital investment and by the delay in increased funding for community services until later in the decade. Without early, sustained, and ringfenced investment in community and VCSE-led mental health provision, current service pressures will only deepen. While the shift in principle is significant, principles do not fund staff, buildings, or sustainable services. To truly prevent crisis, we must resource prevention – and this cannot be deferred.

A meaningful Neighbourhood Health Service cannot merely reproduce statutory NHS services in new community buildings. It must be rooted in the rich landscape of the VCSE sector – organisations already delivering over 70% of community-based mental health provision and supporting more than 8 million people every year. These include culturally appropriate talking therapies, trauma-informed outreach, housing and crisis support, and peer-led interventions. These services are trusted because they are embedded within communities. But they are too often excluded from commissioning frameworks or relegated to short-term, underfunded contracts that undermine their stability and impact. If the new Neighbourhood model is to succeed, these providers must be involved from the outset as equal partners, not invited in retrospectively or as substitutes.

The announcement of 6,700 new NHS mental health roles is a welcome step forward, but it represents only a fraction of the workforce needed to deliver meaningful, integrated care. There remains no comprehensive strategy to address the severe and growing shortages across the wider mental health ecosystem – from peer support and crisis teams, to housing, outreach, and recovery staff. The Association’s Mental Health Data Observatory has already begun mapping these gaps, underscoring the urgent need for a coordinated, cross-sector workforce strategy that reflects the real-world delivery of care. Without it, the Plan cannot achieve the parity of esteem it seeks.

At the same time, while digital access via the NHS App may improve reach for some, it cannot replace in-person, relationship-based care – particularly for people with severe mental illness, lived experience of trauma, or limited digital infrastructure. Inclusion means meaningful choice – not a trade-off between efficiency and equity. We must avoid the risk of replacing one form of exclusion with another.

We also note with concern the Plan’s proposed governance changes, including the removal of NHS providers from Integrated Care Board representation and the abolition of local health scrutiny committees. These changes risk weakening local accountability and diluting the very community leadership and partnership that the Plan rightly promotes elsewhere. Community transformation must be underpinned by shared power, local voice, and collaborative governance – not centralisation.

Throughout the Plan, the emphasis on provider plurality is framed as a route to innovation and flexibility. Whilst this is welcome, it must be matched by a commitment to equity. Many of the most impactful VCSE providers – particularly those led by and for racialised communities or marginalised groups – are locked out of procurement processes due to their size or structure. Plurality cannot become a proxy for privatisation. It must mean genuine inclusion of smaller, community-rooted, culturally responsive organisations that have built trust and delivered results where others have not.

This is the moment to move beyond pilot programmes and rhetoric, and toward real structural change. A commitment to mental health is, in effect, a commitment to the entire health service. Almost 14 years on since the UK Government’s strategy, “No Health Without Mental Health”, we repeat and emphasise – there is no health without mental health. Without sustainable mental health provision, every part of the system suffers – from A&E to employment services, from GP practices to prisons.

Dania Hanif, Interim Chief Executive of the Association of Mental Health Providers commented:

“The 10-Year Plan articulates a commendable ambition for more preventative, community-based care and support. But without upfront investment, a cross-sector workforce strategy, and true parity of esteem for mental health, this vision will remain unfulfilled.

Mental health must be the golden thread that runs through our entire health and care system -not a side strand. Yet, despite the Plan’s positive signals, it falls short of making mental health the unifying priority it needs to be.

Mental health VCSE organisations are already delivering trusted, essential, culturally responsive support across the country. They must be central to this reform, not an afterthought and not peripheral. A plan for neighbourhood health can only succeed if it truly values and resources the neighbourhood mental health services already in place.

We urge NHS England and the Government to work in full and equal partnership with us and the VCSE sector throughout the Plan’s design and delivery. We are ready to contribute to a mental health system that is equitable, locally rooted, and built around the people it serves. But this must be a partnership of equals, underpinned by trust, sustained investment, and decisive action.”

The Association and its members stand ready to support this shift. But to deliver on the Plan’s vision, Government must move from recognising mental health as a priority in words – to embedding it as the principle on which the next decade of health and care is built.