Why is mental health getting worse? The NHS and GP services have been stretched for years,, but the biggest issue has been the attitude of politicians and people in power.
"Over diagnosis" is a term that seems to come up, and a narrative that many people aren't actually sick.
I write this after this article from the BBC.
Mental health services continue to be cut and a real strategy which recognises and understands the condition has never been implemented.
I've seen first hand the massive reduction in services and budgets in the last year. This will kill people, and we will have more unnecessary loss of lives.
There are celebrities and famous people who talk about their mental health problems, but no one truly champions or advocates for those who are struggling.
The challenges for ordinary people are real. If you are faced with mental health difficulties, there is support, but accessing it is a lottery and continuous care under the NHS is completely inadequate.
Charities try, but they remain underresourced to plug a gap that needs the full attention and compassion we've famously had historically for other diseases, in this country.
Why is it so hard for people to see it and recognise that it is an issue? I think it's simply the case of people who are out of touch with the realities many people face. Read the comments for the YouTube video I've included at the top of this post. One of them, liked 145 times, describes the country as broken. And it is.
Mental health is a serious condition. It's an epidemic. It's time we started making more and better inroads. We've made progress over the last few decades, since I first began blogging about it.
However, troublingly we seem to be going backwards since the pandemic, when actually this should have ignited investment. It should have been about truly correcting the injustice of ignoring some of our most vulnerable people who need us to speak for them.
I welcome the independent review into rising demand for mental health, ADHD, and autism services in England, but wonder whether it will result in change that will help a growing crisis around the country, and in fact, the world.
