Britain’s mental health system is in desperate need of a radical overhaul, writes Lizzy Dobres

Last week a #TimetoTalk day was held, a mental health awareness day set up by Time to Change. It was fantastic to see so many people participating in #TimetoTalk on social media, showing that we are so much closer to combatting the stigma. Charities such as Mind, SANE, MQ and Rethink Mental Illness have helped transform the way the UK thinks about mental health, but we need to go further and transform mental health services. This requires government action.

One in four people are affected by mental illness each year and 75 per cent of mental illness starts by the age of 18, but many do not have access to the services they need. Four weeks ago Theresa May made a keynote speech outlining the government’s welcome commitment to improving mental health. She outlined that mental illness has been a ‘hidden injustice’ for far too long and stated that she wanted to ‘transform… mental health across society’. However, David Cameron’s 2015 commitment to invest an extra £1.25bn in the child and adolescent mental health service has still not been met two years on, and the prime minister’s speech last month did not outline any significant increases in funding.

The positive rhetoric was not matched with the same passion for investment in services. In fact, her assertion that it is ‘wrong to assume’ the only answer ‘is funding’ highlights the extent of the government’s misunderstanding. Proposals without funding are meaningless to those who desperately need help. We must no longer accept the drastic imbalance between physical and mental heath services.

The high demand for services leads to many not ever receiving treatment or people receiving the wrong kind of treatment. Young Minds found that around a quarter of children who are assessed by the CAHMS are simply not given treatment. With waiting times sometimes as high 139 days in parts of the country, many who try to seek help are told they will not receive it on the National Health service and are advised to go private. There is a distinct lack of variety when it comes to receiving treatment; it is usually available for a short space of time, leading to many people re-entering the system.

A meta-analysis conducted in 2014 found that a choice of treatment increases patient satisfaction and increases the likelihood of patients returning to work. Those who had a choice of therapy were five times more likely to return to work than those who did not have a choice. We must remember that one-size fits all treatment is as unfit for treating mental health as it is for treating psychical health.

You would be unlikely to use an inhaler to treat a broken leg, so why should those suffering from different kinds of depression or anxiety not have tailored therapy? Research by Mind has highlighted that 58 per cent of people are not offered a choice of therapy and 11 per cent had to pay for treatment because the type of therapy they needed was not available on the NHS. Mental health services are severely oversubscribed and those who simply cannot afford to pay for private therapy often cannot get the help they need.

This is not surprising when only £8 is spent per person on funding mental health research, 22 times less than the equivalent for cancer and 14 times less than dementia. Clinical commissioning groups have even reported that money meant for mental health has been used for other services to the offset government’s deep cuts. The severity of this problem cannot be ignored and there is a clear solution: a radical overhaul in funding for mental health research and services.

Raising awareness is fantastic but it does not go far enough. A government committed to an increase in mental health spending could transform the lives of many people suffering from a mental illness. The government has the chance to create real equality between mental and physical health. The longer this takes to change, the more lives are put at risk.

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Lizzy Dobres is a Labour party activist. She tweets at @LizDobres

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