Mental health needs to be regarded more seriously by policymakers
Mental health is an issue that has for too long been neglected. Support for those who need it is still too patchy. That is despite the fact that the country is facing a mental health crisis.
Lives can and are saved when the correct intervention is delivered in a timely fashion. That is why the new report from the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee should be digested and acted upon by policymakers.
It says “too many people with severe and enduring mental illness are continuing to fall through the gaps of our community mental health services”.
Often mental health issues are being left to charities to deal with. While they do amazing work in the most testing of circumstances, we would not outsource dealing with heart attack patients to a charity. The same duty of care needs to apply to mental health.
MPs say many people experience unacceptably long waits to access care, are “discharged without ongoing support while they are still in recovery”, and are denied care “because they do not meet arbitrary thresholds”.
This is not acceptable and flies in the face of what we know when it comes to mental health, which is that each individual case is complex in its own right.
The report calls on the Government to continue funding a pilot of six 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres “with a view to opening one in every community”. This will obviously cost money. But poor mental health also costs the economy.
With early evidence suggesting they reduce hospital admissions and improve continuity of care, it is worth seriously pursuing the idea.