MENTAL health spending in north Essex is among the lowest in England.

Experts have warned the system is a postcode lottery with just £166 spent per head in Suffolk and North East Essex last year.

By comparison, £220 was allocated per head in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw.

The analysis, by the mental health charity Mind, looked at investment across 42 NHS regions in England and placed Suffolk and North East Essex in the bottom third.

It revealed patients in some parts of the country get half the funding of those living in better-resourced areas.

The findings come after billions of pounds were pumped into mental health in recent years.

The charity found spending was rising in every region but said the differences were huge and would affect the quality of care.

Mind said it appears how people cope with mental health problems is getting worse as the number of people who self-harm or have suicidal thoughts is increasing.

Economic uncertainty, the influence of social media and expectations of what life should be like have all been suggested as possible causes by experts.

In 2016, the NHS committed to investing £1.6 billion to tackling mental health, and last year a further £2.3 billion per year was announced as part of its ten year plan.

The findings were released to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.

Geoff Heyes, head of health policy and influencing at Mind, said: “The treatment you get shouldn’t depend on where you live.

“We are nearly at the end of the five year plan the NHS set out for itself, in which it promised to make serious financial investment to improve mental health services.

“We are seeing some positive change on the ground, across the country, but a long term historic postcode lottery still exists.

“The NHS and Government have made it clear that mental health is a priority. Some local variation is to be expected but the scale of the difference is huge and we know that the need outstrips resource even in the areas that are performing well.

“These figures show not all commissioners are getting the message.”

A spokesperson for North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group, said it was committed to improvements for children and adults. Spending for 2019/20 on mental health in north east Essex is increasing by 6.8 per cent as part of our plans to deliver the national Mental Health Investment Standard.”

“Analysis via spending per head in isolation does not take into account mental health prevalence in an area. In terms of percentage spend of allocation of funds as a Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP), we are at 13.4% in a range from 10% to 16.6% across the region.

“A host of initiatives including partnership working with the voluntary sector on dementia support and programmes to improve young people’s mental health, such as through spending time as a family in the natural environment, are already underway, with mental health firmly on the financial agenda for the future.”