Key NHS long-term plan target to be missed ‘due to covid’

The NHS is set to miss a major national target to eliminate inappropriate out of area placements within mental health by the end of March, HSJ can reveal.

At least eight of the 52 English NHS mental health trusts surveyed by HSJ are predicting they will miss the national deadline of getting rid of their inappropriate OAPs by the end of next month.

The national target was one of the headline mental health pledges set out in  2014’s Five Year Forward View. The pledge was also in 2019’s long-term plan.

Inappropriate OAPs refer to people being sent out of their region to an inpatient mental health bed if no beds are available within their area. Patients are regularly sent hundreds of miles away from their homes.

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Source: HSJ, 23 February 2021