NHS England has extended the contract for a free national mental health support service for GPs and primary care staff after a controversial proposal to cut funding.
It has extended the provision of Practitioner Health by a further 12 months to March 2026 while a review into all mental health services continues.
In April, NHS England (NHSE) said it would no longer fund the service to take on new registrations from hospital doctors and that it would review its offer to all staff groups in the long term.
However, NHSE was forced to U-turn on its plans to axe new secondary care registrations following strong criticism from the profession, including from the BMA and the Doctors’ Association, who called the decision ‘short-sighted’ and ‘cruel’.
As a result, the whole service was extended by 12 months until March 2025 while a review was carried out. Practitioner Health has now confirmed that the service has managed to agree a further extension of 12 months.
This means the free service will continue providing treatment to those in primary and secondary care who are mentally unwell until March 2026.
Ms Warner said: ‘We are really pleased to have this further extension and hope that the NHSE review into staff access to mental health support will demonstrate how Practitioner Health can support the workforce in the long term and provide a secure future for our service.’
But Professor Dame Clare Gerada, a GP and ambassador for the service, said they are ‘still in the same limbo’ while NHS England’s wider review is ongoing.
She said that the extension is ‘good news’, but there is now ‘uncertainty’ for the service – which employs around 190 members of staff – as March 2026 is ‘only 18 months away’.
Professor Gerada said: ‘It’s the largest single physician health programme in the world – it’s a world leader. And instead of saying congratulations, well done, we say “well you’ve got 18 months of funding”.’
She said ‘so many people’ have told the Practitioner Health team that the service is ‘life saving’, and it is particularly important as it offers confidential care to doctors and other health professionals.
‘We know that doctors, especially GP partners, don’t access care unless they are unbelievably assured that it’s confidential and that they won’t see somebody they know, which, if you have local services, won’t necessarily happen,’ Professor Gerada added.
Practitioner Health is a self-referral service and offers treatment for a range of mental health and addiction issues, supporting health professionals to remain in or return safely to work.
Registration data showed that 5,764 health professionals signed up to the service in 2023/24, compared with 3,548 in 2020/21.
The service allows self-referral from primary and secondary care staff in England where there is a genuine reason why they cannot access care confidentially, e.g. due to the seniority of their role or the team they work in.
NHS England confirmed the contract extension, saying staff wellbeing is a ‘crucial part of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan’.
A spokesperson said: ‘To ensure we maintain continuity in the provision of mental health treatment services for primary and secondary care staff, we have notified the supplier of our decision to extend the current contract with Practitioner Health for a further 12 months to 31 March 2026.’
Last year, it was reported that around 5% of GPs in England were accessing mental health services via Practitioner Health – despite the service only intending to reach between 0.5% and 1% of GPs when it began nationwide in 2016.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Management in Practice reported that the free coaching programme, ‘Looking after You’, aimed at helping primary care staff develop their careers and look after their wellbeing has now closed.
A version of this story first appeared on our sister publication Pulse.
