Since we
are about to have yet another General Election on 12 December 2019, I thought
it might be informative to see what the main national political parties have to
say about mental health.
Mental
health is name checked 16 times in the Labour Party Manifesto. They have a
total of seven paragraphs devoted to mental health.
Their
manifesto says:
A Labour
government will provide an additional £1.6 billion a year to ensure new
standards for mental health are enshrined in the NHS constitution ensuring
access to treatments is on a par with that for physical health conditions.
They also
promise £2 billion to modernise hospital facilities and end the use of
inappropriate, out-of-area placements.
Encouragingly,
they give a nod to the recent Mental Health Act Review, stating:
The
legislation for detaining people with learning disabilities and mental
illnesses is outdated. We will implement in full the recommendations set out in
the independent review of the Mental Health Act, so that people are given
choice, autonomy and the treatment they need.
As well as
briefly addressing the need to improve eating disorders services, they also say
they will improve access to psychological therapies. They mention children’s
mental health services, saying they will double the spending on children and
adolescent mental health services, and say they will appoint 3,500 counsellors
to be placed in schools.
Oh, and in
the section on policing they mention mental health once:
Effective
police work requires the police to serve their communities and work
collaboratively with youth workers, mental health services, schools, drug
rehabilitation programmes and other public agencies.
Er... with
less than 3 weeks until the General Election, the Conservatives have still not
actually published their Manifesto.
It is,
however, stated in the Press that they will give the NHS “its biggest cash
boost in history”. This will apparently amount to £33.9 billion. So far, there
is no mention of how much of this would be seen by mental health services.
It is
unknown whether a new Conservative Government will implement the
recommendations of their own Mental Health Act Review, which was flagged in
their last Manifesto in 2017. But then this was published when Theresa May was
Prime Minister, who had at least expressed a concern about mental health.
A search
of their Manifesto reveals 59 mentions of mental health. They really go into
considerable detail, and whoever wrote it really appears to have a grasp of
what the problems are and what is needed to remedy them.
Mental
health is even mentioned in the introduction, stating:
We will
transform our mental health service by treating it with the same urgency as
physical health. About one in four people in the UK experience a mental health
problem each year, and while the NHS may be the envy of the world, our mental
health service falls far short of what patients deserve.
They go on
to say that:
A Liberal
Democrat government will invest £11 billion in mental health to expand access
to therapies and increase the number of psychiatrists and specialist mental
health practitioners. We will make mental health services 24-hour, including
placing mental health liaison teams in all hospitals so that those facing a
mental health crisis are not put in police cells.
They have
a whole section entitled “Fixing Mental Health Services.”
They argue
for parity of esteem with physical and mental health, to the extent of
legislating to give them equality under the law. They also plan to prioritise
early intervention to prevent people from experiencing a mental health crisis
and to minimise the number and duration of in-patient stays.
Their
policies include introducing standards for waiting times for mental health
services, increasing the range of and access talking therapies, making
prescriptions for people with severe mental illness free, and they will:
Implement
all the recommendations of the Wessely review of the Mental Health Act,
including bringing forward the necessary investment to modernise and improve
inpatient settings and ambulances. We will apply the principle of ‘care not
containment’ to mental health, while ensuring an emergency bed is always
available
if needed.
There are three references to mental health in the Green Party Manifesto, contained within a single paragraph. They intend to focus funding:
to enable major improvements to mental health care to truly put it on an equal footing with physical health care, and ensure that everyone who needs it can access evidence-based mental health therapies within 28 days.
An
increasing number of younger people are suffering from mental health issues and
this needs to be addressed. We will introduce practical policies to improve the
delivery of mental health services and increase mental health funding by £500m
per annum.
Nigel Farage
has said that “the word 'manifesto' was a "horrible, horrible word that
equates to 'lie'". They have not therefore released a Manifesto.
Instead,
they have released a “Contract with the People”. This “contract” contains no
reference at all to mental health. They do, however, refer to the NHS in the
most general of terms, including a promise not to privatise the NHS.
So there
it is. I am not making any recommendations as to whom readers of this blog should
vote for. However, purely on the basis of the published manifestos, the Liberal
Democrats have the most detailed and highly developed policies relating to
mental health services.
Although realistically
they have no chance of forming a majority government, they could still have the
balance of power, and might use this to prioritise improvements in services to
children and adults with mental health problems.
Many thanks for this. Can I add the Conservative manifesto now it is out ? - Mentions of mental health are:
ReplyDelete1. 5000 more nurses (across all areas) with £5000-8000 maintenance grant (re-)introduced, specifically higher amounts for regions/disciplines that are struggling to recruit (mental health as the example).
2. Treating mental health with the same urgency as physical health
3. Greater control for people with mental health problems over their treatment (anxiety and depression mentioned) through legislation - but not clear if this refers to the Mental Health Act review.
3. Making it easier for people with learning disabilities and autism to be discharged from hospital and to improve how they are treated in law... I guess not clear if this refers generally to how people with LD are helped by the legal system, or specifically the MHA.
4. An additional £1 billion per year for social care, including (or additionally) £74 million over 3 years to improve capacity in community settings for people with LD/autism
5. Doubling research funding into dementia (I would presume not all central funding)
6. A "new approach" to treatment for substance misuse (in the section on police/crime)
And of related interest would be the continued roll-out of UTC benefits, but reduced frequency of reassessments for people with long term disabilities.
Hope this helps - I don't think it particularly changes your closing comments,
Chris
You went into a lot of detail, but the 50,000 nurses (you say 5,000) has been completely discredited, and Matt Hancock looks more than a bit stupid whenever he repeats it. They really have no plan for social care. And so on. But thanks for your contribution.
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