Government Ignoring Mental Health

Leading charities have urged the Government to urgently address the “crisis” facing mental health services. A dozen mental health bodies, which include the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), the Mental Health Foundation and Young Minds,  issued an unprecedented warning to ministers that if budgets are not increased and protected, the majority of mental health sufferers will remain “locked out” of vital services, almost a year on from Theresa May’s pledge to improve mental health support and ensure it has parity with physical health services.

The Government has said repeatedly that it is investing £1bn extra in mental health services per year, but the charities and politicians urge that this falls short of what is needed and is often failing to reach the frontline.

“We cannot go on with such unambitious targets, or simply accept a situation where promises of extra funding don’t actually materialise at the frontline,” the letter states.

Professor Sarah Niblock, chief executive at the UKCP, which represents over 8,000 highly qualified psychotherapists, explained, “For all the promises of extra funding in recent years, the truth is that much of the money promised isn’t reaching the front line – and instead is being siphoned off to fund other services.”

Over half of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) plan to reduce the proportion of their budget they spend on mental health for 2016-17. Vulnerable people are facing a “postcode lottery” over treatment, despite official NHS guidelines stating that all CCGs must increase their spending on mental health in line with their overall budget increase.

 Care Quality Commission (CQC) last week revealed vulnerable children were facing “agonising waits” for treatment, often causing their mental health to deteriorate further. The findings showed that even when children do access treatment, the services were not always adequate to respond to their needs, with more than a third (39 per cent) of specialist child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) across the UK currently requiring improvement.