A review of the evidence published so far
Denis Duagi, Andy Bell and Adetola Obateru
Covid-19 was an unprecedented global health emergency unlike anything else in living memory. While the pandemic’s immediate impact was on physical health, it also had a profound impact on people’s mental health.
This report explores what is known about those impacts, and how they have affected mental health services in the UK, four years on from the start of the pandemic.
Covid-19 and the nation’s mental health: A review of the evidence published so far finds that the pandemic caused a collective trauma, from the immediate effects of isolation, bereavement and fear to the longer-term trauma of health care workers, and the psychological legacy among children and young people of disrupted education.
The report also explores health inequalities among people with severe mental illnesses, who were far more likely to be hospitalised or die of Covid-19 than the general population, as a result of poorer physical health, racial inequity, and widespread poverty.
While mental health services adapted quickly at the onset of the pandemic, the report finds that the UK Government’s slow, sporadic and reactive response to the mental health impacts of Covid-19 has resulted in both short-term and long-lasting harm. Rising levels of need have since put enormous pressure on the NHS, leading to longer waiting lists for support.
There are important opportunities to learn from Covid-19 and prepare for future crises of this nature to mitigate harm and protect people with mental illness. This report calls for the Covid-19 inquiry to examine the mental health impacts of the pandemic in order to fully understand what happened. It makes the case for putting mental health at the heart of decision making to inform and improve responses to future emergencies.
