Meeting the moment – Investing locally for national impact

After six months of working with the brilliant Maudsley Charity team and our partners, and just after World Mental Health Day, it feels like a good time to share some reflections on our vision, and our plans to take even bigger strides towards it over the coming years.

We want a world where everyone who experiences mental illness, without exception, has access to the right care and support for them. With a record 1.8 million people on mental health waiting lists in England the realisation of that vision feels a long way off. It’s easy to become inured to these numbers, but behind every one of those 1.8m is a person, a family, and lives interrupted.

Even as we grapple with the current need, there are worrying signs on the horizon. The government’s loosening of its grip on the ring-fence around spend on mental health means a falling share of NHS spend will be available to close the growing gap between what is needed and what is available in mental health support. We also cannot ignore the wider social and economic context – an ongoing cost of living crisis that threatens to sink more and more people into poverty, with serious impacts on both physical and mental wellbeing; and the rise of far-right sentiment that exacerbates the exclusion, discrimination and trauma we know contributes to poor mental health in the marginalised groups we serve.

It is not uncommon to hear voices in politics and policy suggest that the main issue in mental health is one of “over-diagnosis” and that mental health services have now had plenty of investment and just need to deliver. This short-term lens is fundamentally flawed. There have been huge strides forward in mental health investment and service expansion and now is not the time to stop or take our foot off the pedal. Decades of under-investment cannot be addressed in just one or even two, properly funded, five-year plans. It is the work of generations.

Maudsley Charity’s role in responding

As Maudsley Charity we fund solutions that improve access to evidenced and effective care and treatment. And whilst these solutions are designed with the needs of our communities across Southwark, Lewisham, Lambeth and Croydon in mind, they will have relevance and application well beyond these four boroughs to communities across the country.

At a time of such urgent need in mental health, as a funder and change-maker, we are committing to convening partners and taking action to support the scale and spread of effective approaches beyond south London.

We are not naive to the scale of the challenge. Whilst we are enormously fortunate to have an endowment we can use to power change, we know that our resources are a tiny drop in the ocean of what’s needed. That’s why we are committed to collaborating with others, and to doing so over the long term. That includes working with other funders – both statutory and philanthropic – to make sure our individual investments and transformation efforts are more than the sum of their parts.

Investing locally for national impact

South London provides a unique space in which to test and scale mental health care initiatives. As an area with one of the most diverse populations in the country, we are supporting the development of culturally appropriate and equitable care. We are also blessed with access to some of the brightest minds in the sector thanks to our partnerships with one of the nation’s leading mental health trusts and a world-class research institute.

I want to highlight just three projects we are working on that provide some hope, optimism and opportunity to genuinely improve treatment and support for people with mental illness across the country. The impact of all three could be maximised and scaled with the involvement of other funders and commissioners.

1. Advance Choice Documents: This is one of the flagship projects in our Living Well with Psychosis programme. Advance Choice Documents are written when someone is well and set out how they would like to be treated during a future mental health crisis or relapse. Their introduction was recommended in the 2018 Independent Review of the Mental Health Act and research has demonstrated their cost-effectiveness. They have shown particular benefits for racialised communities. Maudsley Charity funding supported a local implementation pilot in 2024 and we are now asking the question: What would it look like if all providers offered this service?
2. 24/7 community pilot in Lewisham: We are proud to be supporting one of six pilots of a new neighbourhood mental health centre in Lewisham with a grant of £2.7m to make the building fit for its new purpose. The pilot will trial a new way of providing more accessible, responsive, and fit for purpose support in the community. Service users will be able to access wrap-around support including benefits, housing and employment advice provided by local and trusted community sector organisations. We are also funding a local evaluation of the model to understand its potential to work at greater scale.
3. Building Brighter Futures: We have awarded £7.5m to 11 projects being delivered by over 50 organisations working across the NHS, voluntary sector and research teams, that focus on children and young people aged 10-19 living in the most challenging circumstances. Our grants will fund a range of approaches including; building the confidence and capability of youth workers, mentoring young people, involving them in social action projects, supporting school attendance for those who are struggling, and engaging them in drama, music, and sport. We believe there is a powerful model for partnership working here, and will be collaborating with projects, commissioners and other funders to understand and extend their impact beyond the life of our initial funding.

We are enthusiastic about the change that all three of these projects can deliver for our communities in south London, and the prospect for wider adoption by mental health services across the country. They clearly demonstrate where the gaps in current services are and what can be done to fill them; drawing on lived experience leadership and partnership working to do so. Our strength lies in our partnerships. If you are a fellow funder, commissioner or change-maker who shares our vision, and our excitement for the type of work we’ve highlighted above, let’s connect and discuss how we can work together to extend their impact and make lasting and positive change for and with people living with mental illness.

Find out more about Maudsley Charity, our ambitions and our work in our latest Annual Report