MORE work needs to be done to improve patient access to mental health professionals despite recent improvements, a health official has claimed.

Barry Silvert, Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group board member, made a presentation to the board about the progress on mental health services in the area.

It was revealed that improvements had been made due to increased investment but some patients were still having trouble accessing counsellors quickly.

Dr Silvert, clinical director of integrated commissioning, said: "We have managed to have our recovery rate over 50pc and we are achieving very good figures when compared with other CCGs in Greater Manchester.

"However, our access rates have not been as good as we would have liked and that has been due to a shortage of counsellors and mental health professionals who patients are able to access and see quickly.

"We are certainly working to bring those resources up to where they need to be."

In 2016/17, Bolton CCG spent £43,410,000 on mental health services, with £33,958,000 of that spend on illnesses that were not learning disabilities or dementia.

The latter figure is set to grow by 3.4pc in 2017/18.

Dr Silvert said: "I think we need to look very carefully at the spend on mental health."

But Susan Long, chief officer, said there had been a huge amount of work that has yielded "positive results".

She said: "We have seen an increased focus on mental health which I think is really important and we've also put a lot of investment and time into emotional wellbeing.

"If you look at how we're performing against the key targets, we are doing really well. I think it's a result of how much partnership work has been done in moving mental health further up the agenda."

As part of the presentation, Dr Silvert outlined the key priorities the CCG is focussing on.

These included shifting the focus of care to prevention, early assessment and diagnosis, bringing care closer to home and working with the third sector to improve mental health in the communities.