NHS mental health funding is at risk amid wrangling in Whitehall, The Telegraph understands.

Health officials are in talks about how extra NHS funds will be spent, with a heavy focus on access to GPs, A&E and cutting waiting lists.

The discussions have raised concerns that current standards, which insist on increased investment in mental health every year, could be abolished.

Since 2015, the NHS has been required to work to a "mental health investment standard" which ensures that an increasing proportion of new money goes towards funding such services.

But campaigners are concerned that mental health could end up demoted under the Government's priorities, when it sets out its spending plans in the new year.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said it was not true that there was any plan to abolish the investment standards.

He said: "We have been clear we will give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health."

The health service was given an extra £22.5 billion in the Budget over two years. But analysis suggests that at least half of this will be swallowed up by pay and pensions rises.

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said these sums are a "downpayment" on a 10-year plan for the NHS which will be published in the spring, and set out the Government's key priorities.

Dr Sarah Hughes, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, said: "The loss of the Mental Health Investment Standard would be catastrophic. Without it we risk going back to a time where mental health is bottom of the list for funding and mental health budgets are raided to plug gaps elsewhere.

"We are in the middle of a mental health crisis with an ever-growing need for services. Mental health makes up 20 per cent of all ill health but gets only 10 per cent of NHS funding. The MHIS must be retained as a minimum to close this gap."

Rachel Bannister, co-chair of charity Mental Health - Time for Action Foundation, said mental health groups fear that the sector will lose out when funding is allocated.

It is understood that concerns about future funding were raised in meetings with health officials with the Department of Health earlier this week.

Ms Bannister said: "I met (Sir) Keir Starmer when he was in opposition and he made very clear promises to prioritise mental health, saying how committed he was to mental health.

"To hear this week that the investment in mental health may not be renewed, that really infuriates me."

Last week Wes Streeting was told that the Department of Health and Social Care had not committed to maintaining the standard, and asked if he would make such a commitment.

He told an NHS Providers conference that he wanted to stick with it, but did not make a specific pledge.

"The Mental Health Investment Standard is really important. We want to stick with it," he told delegates.

"We haven't announced allocations over the coming years but we've of course got the settlement from the Chancellor and we've got a clear indication of where we're going over the course of the spending review.

"Of course I want to grow mental health as a proportion of NHS budgets. I'm also focused on elective recovery. That is really important; it's the number one priority for the public - it's a big priority for the Government."

James Scurry, a psychotherapist and co-founder of the mental health non-profit Safely Held Spaces, said under-funding mental health services would increase waiting times for care, which could already be two to three years, while piling pressure on A&E and police forces.

He said: "There's already a huge pressure on A&E from people in mental health crises, which is categorically the wrong place for them to be, and it's stopping our country's great medical professionals from treating the patients that they should be."

The Department for Health and Social Care said: "While funding for reforms and improvements to mental health services will be decided and announced in due course, the Budget provided an extra £26 million to open new mental health crisis centres and funding to provide talking therapies to an extra 380,000 patients.

"We are committed to recruiting an additional 8,500 mental health workers, a specialist mental health professional in every school in England and mental health hubs in every community."