Mental-health provision in Manchester needs substantial more funding to function safely, yet authorities are trying to cut more from the service, reports Counterfire

Early Intervention in Psychosis workers from Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) have started another two days of strike action Friday (8 November) and then again on Monday (11 November). This is a principled dispute over unsafe staffing levels and underfunding.

Unison and Unite strikers at the picket Friday talked about GMMH’s allowing dangerously low staffing levels in the Early Intervention teams. This puts severe stress on workers and means the needs of seriously unwell service users cannot be adequately met. This is of huge concern but especially so due to rising mental-health deaths across the country. 

They also talked about the wider issues in GMMH Community Mental Health provision, such as:

• Freezes on vacant posts and over-reliance on temporary agency and bank staff, with no consistency of care.
• The same regulators and commissioners demanding service improvements, refuse to pay for the skilled staffing these services need.
• Plans for millions of pounds worth of budget cuts across GMMH services.
• Up to £30 million a year in out-of-area hospital beds goes straight into the pockets of private health companies. This is due to a lack of community provision and massive cuts to GM NHS mental-health inpatient beds since 2020.

Greater Manchester Mental Health are aware of the major issues in Early Intervention services and promised additional ‘ring-fenced’ funds. Unfortunately, they have failed to provide this. Additionally, since industrial action started (there was a previous one-day strike on 16 October), they have not met with strikers and their union representatives.

Union representatives have met with the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, on Thursday 7 November, who said he will look into the issue.

The workers plan further strike action until their demands are met. Demands include: 

• there being substantial investment in Manchester EIS, so funding is in line with the NHS England workforce calculator. This is what the actual evidence base says is needed (and at last count was £1.03 million). This is the same amount of national money that had been ring-fenced for Manchester EIS but was never received. 
• a big investment in Manchester’s Community Mental Health Teams. GMMH and the Integrated Care Board (ICB) that oversees the funding for GMMH (and Greater Manchester) are currently in special measures. They have been told by NHS England to repay millions in so-called ‘debt’. Strikers want Andy Burnham, politicians and anyone else in a position of power, to help resolve the funding issues and ensure these essential NHS mental-health services get the investment they urgently need.

So it’s important that as many people as possible support the strike actions. Strikers are currently looking at ways supporters can help them put further pressure on GMMH and the funding body. 

The workers were back out on strike on Monday 11 November. See the Unison Greater Manchester Mental Health Facebook page to stay up to date with progress.