Mental health cuts are ‘driving people to the edge’
Mark Winstanley, head of the Rethink Mental Illness charity, urges the Conservative government to act on its funding promises and prioritise mental health
The day before last week’s election, leaked minutes from the meeting of a key mental health steering group, the Crisis Care Concordat, warned of an NHS “system failure” that was leading to large numbers of people in mental distress turning to A&E for help, due to inadequate community-based mental health services. Concerns were also raised about how many patients, especially young people, were being admitted to hospitals miles away from home because of mental health bed shortages.
Lindsey Cree’s son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, she turned to Rethink, a charity that helps patients and their families deal with the burden of mental illness
Who do you talk to you when your 10-year-old son tells you, racked with fear, that cameras have been installed in the school playground to spy on him? Or when, a couple of years later, he decides he is no longer able to drink anything because the water in the taps has been poisoned? How do you respond when he tells you he is worried that people are injecting toxins into the veins of his hands at night?
