Nation must focus on mental health - PM

[Northerner]

David Cameron has called for the nation to focus on mental health after a review revealed inadequate, underfunded care, leading to "thousands of tragic and unnecessary deaths".

The report - by a taskforce set up by NHS England - said around three-quarters of people with mental health problems received no help at all.

Ministers agreed more needs to be done, committing a £1bn extra a year by 2020.

The government says this will help treat a million more people a year.

The funds are to come out of the £8.4bn the government has promised to the health service during this Parliament and comes on top of extra money already announced for children's services.

Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We should be frank. We have not done enough to end the stigma of mental health.

"We have focused a lot on physical health and we haven't as a country focused enough on mental health."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35565216

Cameron is coming out with all sorts of proclamations at the moment - solve poverty, solve the housing crisis, solve mental health inequalities etc., but none of this is being backed up by any real plan or funding. This extra billion will come out of funding already committed, so he's telling the NHS how it has to spend its money. There's some talk that he will quit as PM if we leave Europe, and he's trying to get some sort of 'legacy' he will be known for, not just losing the referendum. But it's all empty rhetoric - his conference speech last year was astonishing because of how much his stated aims were at odds with reality

I'm a bit fed up with Simon Stevens too, and wondering if he's on some sort of backhander - he was the one who said the NHS only needed £8bn and that it could make £22bn in 'efficiency savings', rather than telling it like it is - the NHS is badly underfunded in the light of the ageing population and the failure of social care due to the local authority squeeze

 

[Rodney Yates]

Causation for me has been the compulsory administration of atypical medicines for psychosis with the chain effect of colossal weight-gain in a short time, high cholesterol and closely followed, diabetes type II and obesity. Yes the NHS contains in its approach to mental health the seeds of the destruction of real people - both through its neglect of physical symptoms and through dirty medicines with destructive outcomes. Thank you NHS for proliferating diabetes and thank you for a smoking habit derived from the sheer tedium of being constrained on psychiatric wards with nothing therapeutic to DO! "20 years premature mortality may understate the havoc wreaked upon blameless victims of Psychiatry and its neglect of physical health.

 

[Rodney Yates]

 

[Northerner]

Causation for me has been the compulsory administration of atypical medicines for psychosis with the chain effect of colossal weight-gain in a short time, high cholesterol and closely followed, diabetes type II and obesity. Yes the NHS contains in its approach to mental health the seeds of the destruction of real people - both through its neglect of physical symptoms and through dirty medicines with destructive outcomes. Thank you NHS for proliferating diabetes and thank you for a smoking habit derived from the sheer tedium of being constrained on psychiatric wards with nothing therapeutic to DO! "20 years premature mortality may understate the havoc wreaked upon blameless victims of Psychiatry and its neglect of physical health.

Hi Rodney, welcome to the forum. Very sorry to hear that your treatment has contributed to your problems, rather than helping you overcome them

 

[Rodney Yates]

General disarray in mental health ensures very few people are treated even-handedly

 

[Amigo]

I wish I could imagine Rodney is exaggerating but I absolutely know he's not! Mental health services in this country are lamentable which is why the prisons are often full of people who need treatment but rarely receive it. There's a massive reliance on badly funded voluntary organisations to fill the gap.

There's a 32 week waiting list for children and teenagers with mental health needs to be seen in some area even those requiring acute, immediate services.

 

[Northerner]

I've just seen Cameron on the news trying to defend his record. He failed miserably and offered nothing but platitudes in response Happy to fund billion-pound planes to bomb Syria, but claims we can only do 'what we can afford' where health is concerned

 

[KookyCat]

Well I'd love to say I believe the mythical money will make a difference but just saying that money already committed to the NHS will be redirected won't do anything at all. I'm biased about this subject, I've said it before and I'll say it again. My cousin committed suicide in a psychiatric ward, after having spent some time in a police cell as a place of "safety", and suffering from bipolar disorder with psychotic mania for many years with little to no support from the medical profession. Shame on all of us for permitting this situation to arise. The stigma associated with mental health problems will never go away if we don't take notice and provide much needed help for those who are after all suffering from an illness. Bipolar disorder is an inability in the brain to stabilise chemicals released by the brain. You don't get much more organic than that. Sorry this is a very emotional subject for me so I don't mean to be brutal, it's just criminal the way psychiatric services have been eroded, and I don't appreciate lip service without action.

 

[Rodney Yates]

I've just seen Cameron on the news trying to defend his record. He failed miserably and offered nothing but platitudes in response Happy to fund billion-pound planes to bomb Syria, but claims we can only do 'what we can afford' where health is concerned

Each sound-byte is a relaunch but its always the same money he is referring to - nothing new is ever brought to the table. He did the same thing during the election. His version of being Tony Blair. I stopped listening sometime back.

 

[Rodney Yates]

https://www.rethink.org/media/1906840/rethink-mental-illness-taskforce-briefing.pdf