It’s A Mentally Healthier Nation’s first birthday and we are celebrating by calling on the new Government to get on with delivering the policies that could transform the nation’s mental health in the next decade.
This time last year, we were in the UK Parliament launching this 10-year, cross-government strategy endorsed by over 70 organisations. Written by scores of experts from a variety of mental health related charities and other bodies, this unique roadmap charts a course for improving prevention, equality and support with concrete, evidence-based policies that would make a real difference to people’s mental health.
Since then, those 70 organisations, including all the UK’s biggest mental health charities, have been meeting politicians, political party manifesto writers, civil servants and health leaders to persuade them of the need to implement the changes contained in A Mentally Healthier Nation.
Through our collective efforts we persuaded the political parties to commit to many of these recommendations in their manifestos for the UK general election. Some of them, like reform of the Mental Health Act, made it into the King’s Speech setting out the new Government’s priorities for the parliamentary year ahead.
We welcome these commitments; it is vital that the Mental Health Act, disproportionately used against people from racialised communities is reformed as soon as possible. But the case for wider change has also become more urgent.
Analysing the Darzi Review of the state of the NHS, our chief executive Andy Bell writes about how the prevalence and severity of mental ill health in this country continues to grow (costing a staggering £300 billion a year in England alone) whilst efforts to prevent and treat it are woefully under-funded and deprioritised compared to other areas.
Lord Darzi’s review is designed to inform the Government’s proposed 10-year plan to improve the NHS. It is vital that this plan includes substantial investment in the mental health workforce and estate and reforms to deliver fairer and better outcomes closer to where people live.
But mental health is much more than vital NHS services. People’s mental health is made in their communities, where having enough money, decent housing, access to green space, clean air, good education, training, advice and support and being treated fairly are all part of having the right circumstances for the best mental health possible.
If the new Government is to deliver on its commitments to grow the economy, improve NHS outcomes and support the healthiest generation of children then it must urgently invest in creating the circumstances that support mental health. A new Budget is looming, and this will be an early opportunity for the Government to put its money where its manifesto is: start building A Mentally Healthier Nation by committing to significant investment in prevention, equality and support.
