Wired.co.uk – 2nd November, 2015

Treat mental health like physical health, campaign urges

by Cara McGoogan

Eleven former health secretaries and ministers have joined 222 public figures — including Kelly Holmes, Richard E. Grant and Alain De Botton — in a call for mental health to be treated equally with physical health in the UK.

The open letter to the government, entitled “Equality for Mental Health”, comes ahead of the spending review, and calls for an increase in funding for mental health care.

“As ministers make final decisions on the spending review, we urge them to treat mental health equally with physical health. We ask for the same right to timely access to evidence based treatment as those with physical health problems,” the letter argued.

According to the campaign, the average lifespan of those who have suffered from mental illnesses is 20 years less than the general population. It also claims that 75 percent of children and young people who suffer from mental health problems don’t have access to treatment, with only only 15 percent of all people who would benefit from treatment receiving it.

The signatories of the open letter identified funding as one of the key reasons behind the disparity between the number of people suffering and the number of people receiving treatment.

Mental illnesses account for 23 percent of all ill health in the UK, and are the largest single cause of disability, according to a 2008 report by World Health Organisation.

But only 5 percent of research funding is spent on mental health, according to the open letter. And less than 11 percent of the UK’s annual secondary care health budget goes to mental health, according to the government report “Achieving better access to mental health services by 2020”, which was issued earlier this year.

The same report estimated that the cost of treating mental health in the UK could double by 2025.

“We are strongly persuaded that sustained investment in mental health services will lead to significant returns for the exchequer, by reducing the burden on the NHS through the improved wellbeing of our citizens, and by helping people to stay in, or get back into work, and by helping people succeed in education,” the open letter read.

It estimated the current cost of mental illness could be as high as £100bn a year — when you total A&E visits, unemployment benefits, lost jobs, homelessness support and costs in the criminal justice system.

Better funding was one of ten areas of “concern” highlighted in the open letter, which was launched by Norman Lamb, former Liberal Democrat mental health minister and Alastair Campbell, former Labour government communications director.

Timely treatment through an introduction of maximum wait times, more hospital beds for mentally ill people, and better processes for gaining and retaining jobs for sufferers were also on the list.