For the first time in something like 25 years, probably longer, I spent a bit of time this morning watching Good Morning Britain, ITV’s breakfast show. I have a distant memory of watching BBC Breakfast Time some 100 years ago, hosted by Frank Bough and Selina Scott, but I cannot deal with watching telly in the morning. The reason I watched was because Lorraine Kelly – she is still hosting the show and she is still brilliant – was interviewing Alastair Campbell about a new mental health campaign called “Equality for Mental Health”. Allow me to quote the opening paragraph of their website:
“We, the undersigned, have joined together to mount a cross-party, cross-society campaign aimed at persuading the Government to help reduce the suffering of those with mental ill health by increasing investment into the provision of mental health services.”
Put to one side Campbell’s politics here, as I would ask you to put aside the politics of Norman Lamb MP and Andrew Mitchell MP who are also signatories to the campaign, because this has nothing to do with politics, not directly anyway. I say not directly because this is not a party political matter unless the politicians want it to be.
I will not repeat huge chunks for the Equality for Mental Health website because I have linked it in my opening paragraph and you can read it yourself if you so wish. We are becoming very familiar with the issues of mental health and like Alastair Campbell I believe the public is ahead, well ahead, of politicians in terms of what should be done. It is a matter of fact that when there cuts to health spending, mental health is always an easy target and so it has been proved in the last five years or so. This suggests very strongly that society does not regard mental health as important. I believe that this was once the case and there are still significant stigmas related to the subject, but there is a far better level of understanding in the population as a whole.
We are in an era when mental illness has become an epidemic. Worse still, the majority of people, especially young people, receive no treatment at all. Seriously ill people end up in cells rather than in hospitals. How does this benefit anyone? And if you were to add up the days lost to business and the public sector as a result of mental illness, the figures would be astonishing. Even if you relegate the prime consideration of wanting people to get better behind the financial costs, you are surely left with something that damages society as a whole.
It is estimated that the mental health costs the economy as much as £100 billion – that’s billion, not million – so even looking at things with a Thatcherite perspective this is an unacceptable burden on society; the cost, not those who are ill, I hasten to add. So the point of this campaign is to call for mental illness to be treated equally to any other illness. That requires money.
I would not refer to money being spent on illness as throwing it down a black hole. I call it investment. Making people better means they then work, they don’t end up in a police cell or hospital, they don’t consume so many drugs, there are less people whose lives are ruined or ended prematurely. The list goes on forever.
The good news is that the prime minister David Cameron and the health minister Jeremy Hunt support the new campaign. This means that the argument has been partly won already. They accept that there is a problem and action must be taken. That action means, purely and simply, spending money and lots of it but spending money for a purpose. What government can honestly continue to allow a situation to exist whereby £100 billion is lost every year due to a type of illness? We are constantly told that the national deficit should be brought down and the national debt should be reduced, so to do nothing makes no sense. It makes no sense in terms of society not looking after its own people and it makes no sense in economic terms.
Politicians of all colours have been behind the game until now. We are beginning to get the case across for proper investment in a vital area and the Equality for Mental Health Campaign must succeed.
