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(Image: MEN)<\/p>\n‘We recognise that people with mental health issues, including those in Greater Manchester, are not getting the support or care they need’(Image: MEN)<\/p>\n
The government has issued an update on mental health services in Greater Manchester, after an MP questioned the ‘adequacy of mental health services in the region’.<\/p>\n
The question to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, comes after years of crises among the region’s mental health providers. Both of the region’s main mental health care trusts are beleaguered by whistleblowing and safety concerns, and damning health watchdog reports.<\/p>\n
People with severe mental illness are also more likely to die prematurely<\/a> in Manchester than anywhere else in the country, as reported by the Manchester Evening News.<\/p>\n All the while, demand on mental health care across the nation, Greater Manchester included, has skyrocketed following the pandemic.<\/a><\/p>\n Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE<\/a><\/p>\n Independent MP for Gorton<\/a> and Denton<\/a> Andrew Gwynne posed a written question to Mr Streeting: “What assessment has he made of the adequacy of mental health services in Greater Manchester?”<\/p>\n The answer came from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the DHSC, Dr Zubir Ahmed. He said: “We recognise that people with mental health issues, including those in Greater Manchester, are not getting the support or care they need, which is why we are working to ensure the National Health Service provides the right support to the right people at the right time.<\/p>\n That is why, as part of our mission to build an NHS<\/a> that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, the government is recruiting an additional 8,500 mental health workers, including psychiatrists, by the end of this Parliament. We are more than halfway towards this target, which will help to ease pressure on busy mental health services.<\/p>\n “The 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including in Greater Manchester. We will transform the current mental health system so people can access the right support at the right time in the right place.<\/p>\n “This includes transforming mental health services into 24\/7 neighbourhood mental health centres, building on existing pilots, and investing up to \u00a3120 million to bring the number of mental health emergency departments up to 85.”<\/p>\n The region\u2019s largest mental health provider, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS<\/a> Foundation Trust (GMMH) was exposed by an undercover Panorama investigation over alleged abuse of vulnerable patients in one of its facilities in 2022.<\/p>\n The Edenfield Centre facility was shut down to new patients as internal, independent and criminal investigations began.<\/p>\n The crises have not just been confined to one unit. The whole trust was hit with an ‘inadequate’ rating in 2023 after the abuse scandal, and was then served with another warning to improve rapidly in June 2024, after major concerns across all of its services in Greater Manchester.<\/p>\n The warning from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was over \u2018lack of effective governance systems, ligature risks and fire safety concerns, medicines not managed safely, ward security systems not consistently keeping people safe, infection prevention and control risks and staff not up to date with mandatory training\u2019.<\/p>\n After another inspection in late 2024, wards at the Edenfield Centre were again criticised by watchdog<\/a> inspectors, with concerns raised over the safety of patients. Bosses claim improvements have been made.<\/p>\n Before that episode aired, the Manchester Evening News had already been reporting on the unsafe understaffing of those mental health services, and how trust failures had been cited in court as contributing to the tragic deaths<\/a> of multiple people supposed to be under its care.<\/p>\n The M.E.N. has also often reported how many of the improvements the trust promised have \u2018not been progressing to plan’ \u2013 and have even got worse in the intervening years<\/a>, despite the trust being plunged into the highest levels of scrutiny by the NHS.<\/p>\n Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust is the other major mental health care provider in the region. It was rated as requiring improvement by the health watchdogs in 2019.<\/p>\n Health watchdogs visited units operated by Pennine Care too last year following safety concerns from whistleblowers and people using the units<\/a> between June and October 2024.<\/p>\n And according to the watchdog, these concerns about the wards for older people were proven to be \u2018substantiated\u2019.<\/p>\n It revealed breaches to people\u2019s safety and patients\u2019 consent to care and treatment. The CQC also found that there were not enough staff with the right skills and training, and the trust was served with a warning notice to make rapid changes.<\/p>\n Pennine Care provides mental health services across Bury<\/a>, Rochdale<\/a>, Oldham<\/a>, Tameside<\/a>, and Stockport<\/a>, including in hospitals, to over 70,000 people as of 2023\/24.<\/p>\n While GMMH provides mental health services across Bolton<\/a>, Manchester, Trafford<\/a>, Wigan<\/a>, and other areas of the north west, including in hospitals, to over 97,000 people as of 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘We recognise that people with mental health issues, including those in Greater Manchester, are not getting the support…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[70102,17772,134,554,555,111,139,1374,69,83394,83395,83391,83392,83396,83393,29408],"class_list":{"0":"post-117718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-bolton","9":"tag-bury","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nhs","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-oldham","18":"tag-rochdale","19":"tag-salford","20":"tag-stockport","21":"tag-tameside","22":"tag-trafford","23":"tag-wigan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1_eden1.jpg\")
Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust is one of two beleaguered mental health providers in the region(Image: MEN MEDIA)<\/p>\n