Austerity and a malign benefits regime are profoundly damaging mental health
442 psychotherapists, counsellors and academics condemn government plans and call on Labour and other parties to denounce anti-therapeutic practices
Manchester celebrities Shaun Ryder, Terry Christian, Rowetta and Claire Mooney are to lead hundreds of protesters in a rally against ‘appalling’ coalition cuts that have affected the city.
The Mancunian icons will lead crowds in what they are calling a ‘smart rally’— an emulation of the pro democracy demonstrations that took place in Hong Kong back in September 2014.
In a nationwide survey 54 per cent of head teachers complained that local mental healthservices were ineffective in supporting the needs of pupils.
Nearly half the heads (47 per cent) said their increasing workloads were affecting their ability to identify pupils’ mental health difficulties at a time when such problems are on the rise in schools.
The survey, by the CentreForum Mental Health Commission also found that one in 10 schools still had no mental health and wellbeing training available for staff, in spite of Government pledges, and 65 per cent were not even assessing the mental health needs of their pupils.
The report comes at a time when emotional and behaviour problems among younger children are increasing because of higher divorce rates, financial pressures at home and the growing influence of social media.
Claims of bullying culture among staff at Britain’s biggest NHS mental health trust
The UK’s biggest mental health NHS trust, which covers Broadmoor Hospital and units looking after the most vulnerable female patients, is in turmoil following widespread allegations of bullying, a critical Care Quality Commission inspection report and the sudden resignation of its chairman.
Parts of the country have no places of safety to assess vulnerable children suffering from a mental health crisis, forcing them to be locked in prison cells or police vans for hours at a time.
Maps revealing the mental health units and hospitals where people can be detained if police believe they are a danger to themselves or others because of a mental health problem show Norfolk, Hampshire and Devon have not one dedicated place of safety for children under 16.
Ending the NHS “Sell off: the abolition of your NHS” (Full Movie)
I will shine a torch on what some doctors see as a glaring omission in the national psyche. I have identified a powerful group of figures within the NHS who are alarmed by the public’s lack of awareness about the abolition of their NHS. This film will follow their arguments right the way up to the Health Secretary’s relinquishing of responsibility for the nation’s health, and will argue that it must be reversed. This film also takes you on a personal journey to a national theme that has massive implications for us all. It will reveal a hidden agenda that’s already having disastrous effects. According to one senior consultant: ‘It’s like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank’. Each of the insiders will speak to us intimately, as if we’re patients in the consulting room. It will be clear that these doctors are people simply doing their jobs by putting their patients’ interests – which are also the viewers’ interests – first. What perhaps will surprise us most is how efficiency and quality will drop. Or, perilously, how close we are to falling forever down a pitiless US-style empty well of no-bucks-no-care. Though the diagnosis remains bleak, the strength of the characters at the film’s disposal should give us surprising hope, casting flashes of light across an otherwise bleak landscape. The style of the film is intimate, hand-held scrupulousness. Interviews will take place in discreet corners of hospitals, surgeries and streets, the images at times elevated by a powerful soundtrack, leaving the viewer with an overall admiration for the doctors’
Mental health services are being “starved of resources”
A mental health commission led by former health minister Paul Burstow MP, which included representatives of the NHS, charities and Royal College of Psychiatrists, found mental health is underfunded by about 10% or £10bn.
The core ideal of the NHS, that makes it so beloved by British people, is its promise of healthcare free for all. That promise has now become incompatible with the reality of austerity.
By 2020, the NHS will require an extra £30bn just to keep services at their present level. This strangulation of funds has seen the NHS Mental Health Trusts lose £253m, 2.3 per cent of their funding. These cuts translate into a dramatic loss of vital support for those with mental health conditions
Imagine a health problem that affects one in six of us, that has a deep and damaging impact on our family and working lives, where effective treatments are available, and yet where only about a quarter of people with this condition get any treatment. Is this a scandal of neglect affecting people with cancer or heart disease diabetes? No – this is the real situation for people with mental health problems in Britain today. These conditions span the range from autism to alcohol use disorders, and from depression to dementia. More than 50 years ago when mothers suffered from post-natal depression in England, they were given electroconvulsive therapy to aid their recovery. Yet there is little evidence that we treat provide better mental health treatment now than we did then.
A report this week was grim reading for those involved in mental health care. The survey of GPs revealed that one in five had seen patients harmed as a result of “delays or a lack of support” from mental health services, while shortfalls had forced 82 per cent of doctors to act “outside of their competence”. While this news is shocking, it is just another example of the UK’s mental health care crisis.
Just last week, data obtained from freedom of information requests led to claims that the NHS treated mental health care as a “second-class service”. Indeed, thousands of mentally ill patients have been forced to travel “hundreds of miles” for treatment in recent years. Extreme cases have seen patients being forcibly sectioned so that they can receive care in overcrowded wards. Even medical students have resorted to asking for greater teaching on psychiatry, highlighting the derisory attention that mental health issues receive. Yet the state of mental health services is unsurprising considering that they receive only 13 per cent of the NHS budget, despite mental illness affecting around a quarter of the UK population.
