Mental Health Improvement
This page provides links to our work across the GIRFT specialties and projects which together form the programme’s mental health portfolio. Here we outline the key areas of focus.
In November 2025, NHS England aligned its mental health improvement teams under the GIRFT banner to deliver a unified approach to service improvement. The Mental Health Improvement Support Team (MHIST) is now part of the GIRFT programme, working together to deliver on the strategic priorities for mental health services as outlined in the NHS 10-year Health Plan.
Mental health review in urgent and emergency care
GIRFT is working to review mental health care in urgent and emergency care (UEC) services, helping to support shorter term and winter pressure planning, as well as the long-term transformation of mental health services in the UEC pathway.
Assessing the current landscape of mental health provision for patients in the UEC pathway, the work identifies best practice and where there are significant gaps in pathways. The aim is to provide recommendations for improved access, flow and delivery of mental health services in the UEC pathway at local, regional and national levels, with an initial focus on 12-hour and 24-hour emergency department breaches.
The UEC mental health review is also a core part of GIRFT’s Further Faster programme for UEC (FF UEC), which is working closely with 20 acute providers to build on their existing efforts and strengthen UEC pathways. The focus of FF UEC is on improving Category 2 ambulance response times; enhancing 4-hour emergency department performance; reducing long ED waits; shortening length of stay to improve patient flow; and understanding the interaction of mental health services within the UEC pathway.
Mental health improvement support tools
Elective recovery tools
A range of mental health elective recovery tools have been developed to support providers and systems with their responsibilities in operational delivery and are based on well-established improvement methodologies.
These resources cover:
Visit Future NHS to access support tools and best practice guidance on mental health elective recovery.
Mental health recovery support
Recovery support is a period of ‘hands-on’, bespoke, intensive support provided to a system by the GIRFT mental health team. This is often triggered by the identification of a need to undertake rapid quality improvements, e.g. the emergence of patient safety concerns triggering an increase of SOF rating and/or CQC regulatory activity.
However, recovery support can also be commissioned by regions, systems or organisations, in accordance with other types of local priority needs.
Read the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS FT assignment report on Future NHS here >
UEC mental health tools
The GIRFT mental health team has developed two key tools to support urgent and emergency care in mental healthcare services.
- The UEC Mental Health Services Assessment Tool (Men-SAT) benchmarks crisis pathways for children, adults, and older adults against national standards and NICE guidance with a practical self-assessment and improvement framework across key areas such as access, flow, workforce, digital capability and patient experience.
The assessment tool supports better collaboration between mental health, acute, and community partners, helping to ensure timely, high-quality responses for people in crisis. It is designed to identify critical gaps within pathways, supporting commissioning efforts, including winter planning. It provides systems with tailored improvement plans aimed at enhancing mental healthcare delivery and reducing demand and delays in emergency departments across England, ensuring improvements are long term and sustained.The tool has also helped to generate case studies to showcase best practice in supporting people with mental health needs within UEC pathways.
- The UEC mental health action cards are aligned with national priorities and are aimed at supporting better outcomes for people with mental health needs waiting in Emergency Departments (EDs).
Updated in September 2025, the action cards align with the OPEL MH actions, Model ICB and Region Blueprints, and the 10-Year Health Plan. They support systems to reduce long waits, improve care quality and support coordinated action between regions, ICBs, SCCs, and both acute and mental health trusts.
Find out more about GIRFT’s mental health improvement resources:
- E learning
The Foundations for Better Mental Health Services e-learning modules provide training for staff to improve patient flow and reduce waits in community mental health services.
Modules include:
- Making access to services fast, fair and simple
- Managing long waits – understanding and reducing backlogs
- Proactively managing waiting lists
The training course is delivered via a mix of videos, exercises and interactive drop-in sessions. Find out more on Future NHS here >
- National specialty reviews
The GIRFT programme has 50+ workstreams reviewing clinical specialties. Of these, three come under the mental health umbrella:
- Mental health adult crisis and acute care
- Dr Neeraj Berry, clinical lead
- Dr David Somerfield, clinical lead
- Children and young people’s mental health services
- Dr Johnny Downs, clinical lead
- Mental health rehabilitation
- Dr Sridevi Kalidindi, CBE, clinical lead
Our clinical leads for these specialties are working to improve mental health care and services across the NHS by identifying and addressing unwarranted variation, and focusing on improving outcomes, reducing delays and promoting equity in access to care.
These workstreams have published three national reports and resources to support trusts and systems to adopt best practice.
- Mental health news