A report has
been produced by a mental health taskforce set up by NHS England. Findings show
that around three quarters of people with mental health problems receive no
help at all. Ministers have agreed that more needs to be done, and have
committed an extra £1bn a year by 2020, helping to treat 1 million more people
per year- the next five years will build the foundations for the next
generation.
Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We
should be frank. We have not done enough to end the stigma of mental health. We
have focused a lot on physical health and we haven't as a country focused
enough on mental health." Poor mental health can drive a 50% increase in
costs in physical care, and with suicide and self harm on the rise we need to
take action now to provide the same level of support to mental health patients
as we do for the physically ill.
Mental health problems represent the largest
single cause of disability in the UK. The cost to the economy is an estimated
£105 billion per year- roughly the cost of the entire NHS.
One contributor to the report stated: “The NHS needs a far more
proactive and preventative approach to reduce the long term impact for people
experiencing mental health problems and for their families, and to reduce costs
for the NHS and emergency services”.
The priority actions for the NHS by
2020/21, taken from the report are:
1. 7 day NHS- right care, right time,
right quality
2. Integrated mental and physical
health approach
3. Promoting good mental health and
preventing poor mental health- helping people lead better lives as equal
citizens
Of course, a 7 day NHS already exists for emergency care, but to offer
the full range of mental and physical health services 24/7, funding is needed.
The extra £1bn will come from the £8.4bn the government has already
promised to the health service during this parliament, but is on top of the
extra money that has already been promised to children’s services. The funding is intended to go towards:
·
600,000
more people getting talking therapy
·
Every
A&E to get a mental health liaison team
·
Maternity
units to get perinatal psychiatry to catch depression in new mothers
·
Extra
help for children and young people with eating disorders
·
More
crisis teams to keep people out of hospital
The worry here is that the money isn’t ringfenced, so will it be used to
pay off some of the current NHS debts rather than on enhancing the mental
health service?
Currently, less than a tenth of NHS funds go to mental illness and
severe cuts since 2010 have left 5000 fewer mental health nurses as well as 8%
fewer mental health beds. Professor Sir Simon Wessely, the president of the
Royal College of Psychiatrists, says mental health funding has been cut by 8%. As
budgets are reducing, mental health care such as social care and residential
housing is facing more pressures and the level of service is suffering as a
result.
Figures
obtained through a Freedom of Information request showed the budgets for mental
health trusts fell by 2% from 2013/14 to 2014/15.Of the 53 out of 59 mental
health trusts in England which responded to the FOI request, 29 said their
budget would be lower this year than last.
People with a serious mental illness are asking for the same level of
treatment that they would get if they had a serious physical illness. But
despite mental health affecting one in four people and being both the largest
single cost across the NHS and the most common reason for days lost from work,
mental health has been neglected, and lagged far behind the support available
for physical health. Let’s hope that this changes now that it has been
recognised by the Government and that the money is used to improve the mental
healthcare in the UK, achieving the parity of esteem that the NHS sees as a key
priority.
