A FAILURE to recruit new mental health staff risks plunging the NHS into a “raging inferno” of a crisis, Labour warned yesterday.

Recently released analysis shows that NHS England is unlikely to be able to recruit enough people to fulfil the government’s promise of filling 21,000 new mental health roles by 2021.

The figures are contained in the NHS Long Term Plan document, which has been finally published after a severe delay of several months.

Despite the fact that the government is now reaching the halfway point of its Stepping Forward to 2020-21 policy strategy, the document suggests that on current trends the government will miss its target by a shocking 15,000.

The data shows that total number of mental health nurses in employment has fallen in every single month in 2018, and that the number of psychiatrists has increased by only 3 per cent over the past year.

Shadow minister for mental health Barbara Keeley said: “This government’s failure to act on the mental health workforce crisis could threaten to turn the burning injustice of mental ill health that the Prime Minister pledged to tackle into a raging inferno."