Lord Carter’s review into unwarranted variations in mental health and community health services

Document first published:: 24 May 2018
Page updated:: 24 September 2019
Topic:: Mental health, NHS Improvement
Publication type:: Report

Lord Carter’s review identifies unwarranted variation in the delivery of mental health and community health services, as well as the potential savings of nearly £1 billion that could be made in efficiencies by 2020/21.

What is the review report about?

Following Lord Carter’s 2016 review into the operational productivity of acute non-specialists trusts, the mental health and community sectors requested a similar review into its services to help them understand what good looks like. As well as what improvements could be made to deliver good quality, better value services for their patients.

What do some of the findings tell us?

Over the past 18 months, we have worked closely with a cohort of mental health and community providers to understand the services they deliver to patients and the big areas of spend across both sectors.

Each provider demonstrated some area where they are performing well, but across mental health and community sectors, there is still unwarranted variation which if eliminated could save the NHS nearly £1 billion in efficiencies by 2020/21.