Bob Alexander (Director of NHS Finance) and Bruce Calderwood (Director of Mental Health Policy) have written to all mental health service leads with an update on Payment by Results for mental health services for working age and older people.

The letter confirms that:

• The Department of Health (DH) are now in the ‘implementation phase’ of mental health Payment by Results (PbR)
• The department has decided that for 2010/11 only, they will collect reference costs for mental health in two ways;
  • The usual reference cost collection exercise in July 2011.
  • A specific cluster reference cost collection exercise. This will take place in September 2011.
• To support the cluster reference cost collection they are preparing a costing template and guidance which will be made available shortly on the PbR for mental health section of the DH website
• All service users accessing mental health care (post GP or other referral) that have traditionally been labelled working age adults and older people’s services, must be allocated to a cluster by 31 December 2011
• The earliest possible date for a national tariff for mental health (if evidence from the use of a national currency presents a compelling case for a national price) is 2013/14.

Read the letter in full on the Department of Health website.