[user104658]

It's the fault of the NHS (top level, not front line staff!) and the government hand in hand to be honest. NHS spending has been too high for years because the levels of waste and inefficiency in the NHS are absolutely shocking. Of course the current government have only compounded the problem by cutting funding and basically saying "and now you have to find a way to deal with it" rather than doing it the right way: BOOSTING funding in order to streamline the service and make it an efficient, modern medical environment and THEN once it's running as it should be savings can be made.

That's a major problem that the ConDems have always had though - they simply can't wrap where head around the fact that you need to spend more in the short term in order to get into a position to save money long term.

Of course on top of that, this is mental health. my dad (now retired) worked his entire life in mental health, going from nursing into the administrative / political side, and it's pretty well known that mental health is the NHS's last priority. The first to be cut and the last to see the benefits of any Improvements being made. The sad fact is, it's just not taken as seriously as acute physical diseases and disorders. Even though a population with poor mental health costs the country so much more in the end.