Are mental health centres in libraries, banks and high street locations really going to make much of a difference? Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has unveiled the new facilities today with a £343 million funding package and a claim that this is ‘the biggest redesign of mental health services in a generation’. In any other healthcare setting, that would be a pretty bold claim to make, but instead it just underlines how little work there has been on making mental health services work within the wider NHS.

These 159 new mental health centres, some of which will have their own buildings and others will be based in high street settings, are designed to be ‘welcoming settings with a non-clinical........

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