Mental health spending cuts forecast

by Rick Johansen

Do you remember just a few short weeks ago when Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced that spending on mental health was to increase by £250 million a year? What a man, what a promise! And Clegg said, “It’s all part of a journey where we start, as a country, lifting the stigma that has surrounded mental health and making sure that we treat mental health in the same way as we do people with physical health problems.” But today I learned the truth: it was just another Nick Clegg promise. It didn’t mean anything because the facts now prove the opposite. The government is cutting spending on mental health treatment.

Is it any wonder we regard politicians with utter contempt? I would treat just about anything Clegg says with at the very least suspicion and often with contempt. He sold any principles he might have had for a vainglorious non job as Deputy PM whilst nodding through just about every nasty policy Cameron brought to the table. The facts, revealed by 41 NHS trusts today, show that there will be cuts to mental health servcie of 8% in real terms over the next four years.

Stephen Dalton, of the Mental Health Network, which represents trusts, said: “These figures won’t be a surprise to providers because they have been dealing with cuts to mental health services over the past five years. There is an institutional bias against mental health services.” Tell me about it.

Clegg and co said they wanted mental health to be treated the same as physical health, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It is an issue with which I am very familiar as my loyal reader will well know. I am not in a “high risk” category with my problems, although my clinical depression has been diagnosed as being severe. So I have been on a waiting list for four months. Not an NHS waiting list, mind you: a private company waiting list that’s being paid by the NHS to provide additional services because the NHS waiting list is so long I might die of old age before I got treatment. And this is not just some anecdote. This is how life is for people who are mentally ill. We have people of all ages, but especially young people these days, whose lives are being ruined by mental health illnesses. It is believed that mental health issues cost our economy something like £100bn a year. Can you imagine £100bn? I would have thought spending money in the right areas would be an investment, not chucking money into a black hole. But no. The powers that be look at cost factor and don’t look beyond it.

Us mental people are an inconvenience to politicians who always talk the talk but don’t really mean it. People like Clegg make promises that they will put right a terrible wrong but when the facts emergent turns out they plan to make things even worse.

Mental health has not been an election issue at all. The politicians, with the honourable exceptions of Andy Burnham and, belatedly, Norman Lamb (whose son has suffered terrible problems) have all but ignored the cries for help from sufferers and those who speak on our behalf.

The truth, the reality, is that mental health services for all bar the most severely ill have been pared to the bone since 2010. And the words of Clegg, the ultimate yellow Tory, are just weasel words to disguise the reality of the mess him and his pals are making of our NHS.

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1 comment

Edward Fruitman July 15, 2015 - 10:22

The costs on TMS therapies, medications, caregivers, psychotherapies and other facilities have increased rapidly with the increased cases of mental illnesses. There should be more research on methods for preventing these diseases in the first place; otherwise the problem will get out of hand.

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