Ministers must tackle poverty, poor housing and air pollution to improve England’s worsening mental health, a coalition of charities, think tanks and employee groups has told ministers.
Their blueprint for better mental health also includes a crackdown on racism, reforms to the benefits system and action to end the stark inequality that sees people with severe mental illness die up to 20 years earlier than the general population.
Their ideas are contained in a report published on Wednesday by the Centre for Mental Health, which draws on policy proposals from 35 key organisations.
They include the charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the advice service Place2Be and children’s charities including the Children’s Society.
Sustained action is needed because Covid-19, austerity and the cost of living crisis have led to an increase in the number of people suffering from mental illness in England in recent years, the coalition says.
“An unprecedented number of people are struggling with their mental health and support services in England are on their knees,” said Dr Sarah Hughes, chief executive of Mind. “Record numbers of people are waiting for the treatment they need.”
The report warns ministers that the rising number of people struggling with their mental health – 8.2 million are living with at least one condition such as anxiety or depression – is causing “avoidable misery, death, demand on stretched services, lost economic productivity and costs of tens of billions of pounds”.
It sets out other measures that should be included in a 10-year plan to improve mental health. They include:
- A new Child Poverty Act to eradicate child poverty by 2030.
- The creation of a minimum income guarantee and reform of sick pay.
- Action on junk food, smoking, alcohol and gambling.
- An end to the ‘hostile environment’ immigration policy.
In April last year, Health Secretary Steve Barclay called for evidence to inform the development of what he said would be a 10-year ‘health and wellbeing plan’, as well as a separate suicide prevention plan. However, in January this year, the former was scrapped and replaced with a much broader strategy for major conditions, which is still being developed and will also cover cancer, heart disease and other major killers.
A future government should start applying a ‘mental health test’ to every policy it plans to implement to ensure it helps tackle mental ill health, the 35 groups add.
Sean Duggan, chief executive of the NHS Confederation’s mental health network of specialist NHS trusts, said the NHS must respond to the growing need for care and “transform mental health services for people of all ages and backgrounds”, including through new access targets.
But he also stressed the importance of tackling the social determinants of ill health, adding: “By reducing the number of people who develop mental health problems in the first place, we can ensure that those who need help get the mental health support they need. On the other hand, a continued lack of investment in mental health services means a crisis for the whole NHS”.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are going further and faster to transform our country’s mental health services, with up to an extra £2.3 billion invested each year by 2024 to expand services so that an additional 2 million people can get the support they need.”
The Major Conditions Strategy will be “informed” by evidence submitted by mental health organisations last year for the now scrapped dedicated strategy, they added.
