Early intervention treatments for some people with mental illnesses could save the NHS millions of pounds a year.

According to the charity Rethink Mental Illness, for every £1 spent on early intervention services for people with psychosis and schizophrenia there would be a saving of £15 due to the reduction in spending on expensive hospital care.

A new report by the charity and the London School of Economics claims that over two to five years’ investment in early detection services could save the NHS £50 million a year.

It also states that too much of the current budget to treat psychosis is being spent on costly inpatient care, rather than community care which can prevent people from becoming seriously unwell in the first place, and the charity said more money must be ploughed into these services to reduce the need for costly hospital beds.

“Mental health is chronically underfunded,” says Victoria Bleazard, associate director of campaigns and policy for Rethink Mental Illness.

“It accounts for 23 per cent of the disease burden in England, but gets just 13 per cent of the budget. On top of this, NHS spending has been essentially frozen in real terms until around 2020.

“Not only do we want to see mental health getting a fairer share of the budget, but we also need to make sure that the money that is available, is spent as efficiently as possible. In this climate, it makes no sense to cut mental health services which generate cost-savings and save lives. Short-term cuts only store up bigger costs for the future.

“The earlier we can detect and treat schizophrenia and psychosis, the better the chances are of recovery for the individual and the cheaper it is for the system in the long-term.

“We’ve seen this shift in other areas of medicine such as cancer treatment, where swift, early treatment is a priority. We need to see the same change in emphasis for people with schizophrenia and psychosis.”

A spokesman for NHS Bradford City, NHS Bradford Districts and NHS Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) says: “We support Rethink’s report about the importance of early intervention in psychosis services which supports patients with treatment and recovery in the community.

“This is something that has been a long-held priority in Bradford and Airedale and because of this we remain committed to long-term funding of important mental health services such as the Bradford and Airedale Early Intervention in Psychosis Service, which has been established for some time.

“This local service aims to promote mental health and social recovery through a collaborative approach between the CCGs, Bradford District Care Trust and other partners across education and youth services, primary care and the community.

“This is a service which is holistic and person-centred, providing patients with improved access to psychological therapies and other treatment as well as providing vital support for their families. The CCGs view this as an invaluable local community service which keeps people in good mental health and, where possible, avoids treatment in hospital.”

Frank Hanily, deputy director of operations at Bradford NHS Care Trust says: “We understand the recovery benefits in supporting people with a serious mental illness, such as psychosis, in the community and place a strong emphasis on delivering care this way.

“We provide many of the recovery-focused interventions mentioned in the report including Early Intervention teams, Intensive Home Treatment teams, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and physical health promotion.

“We will review the report in detail.”

Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb said: “We know that early access to treatment in the community is often the best option for people with psychosis and schizophrenia. Not only do they benefit from being in familiar surroundings among loved ones, but they are less likely to need costly hospital stays.

“We need to see a shift of resources to this sort of preventative care and I am very pleased to be working with Rethink Mental Illness and the LSE on this.

“We have given NHS England a clear objective to put mental health on a par with physical health and we are scrutinising commissioning plans of CCGs and the draft budgets of mental health trusts to make sure that they reflect this.”