A new strategy for mental health: 'No health without mental health'
 

On Wednesday 1st February 2011, the Government announced a new mental health strategy for the next ten years. The 'No health without mental health' strategy outlines how a new emphasis on early intervention and prevention will help tackle the underlying causes of mental ill-health. You can read the new strategy in full here.

Marjorie Wallace, Chief Executive of SANE has responded to this announcement with a Q&A that highlights the positive aspects of the strategy, causes for concern in the future as well as ongoing issues within Mental Health:-

What are your thoughts on this new strategy?

We welcome the new money that is being invested to make psychological therapies more available. Yet we are concerned that this ‘therapy for the nation' strategy could be perceived as a panacea for the whole spectrum of mental health problems. In short, what works for some people may not work for others.

What we need is a range of treatment options and avenues so that people who are struggling with mental illness can find the right course for themselves in order to get back to health. Yet this announcement comes against a background of closures of psychiatric beds, day centres, occupational therapy facilities and community services. We fear services may become even more threadbare as health service savings start to bite.

Has mental health often played second fiddle to physical wellbeing?

Mental illness often does not receive the attention that it deserves. For example, in the UK only 5% per cent of medical research is in mental health, yet illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression account for 15% of all disability.

We have long campaigned for mental illness to be treated with the same priority as cancer or heart disease, knowing that as many as one in four of us will experience it at some point in our lives, and that this suffering will impinge on families and friends as well.

Do professionals such as teachers need more training when it comes to mental health issues?

Undoubtedly yes. Many of those who we help through our services tell us that the stigma attached to their condition can be as difficult and painful as the condition itself.

It is only by encouraging people to come forward and seek help earlier that we can hope to arrest the tide of mental ill-health. And this can only happen if those in a position to help are armed with a clear understanding so that they can challenge the many misconceptions and misunderstandings about mental illness.