People with mental illness in England face ‘horrifically long’ ambulance delays

Posted on 11th September 2023 by Dan Price

Ministers have been accused of “sheer neglect” of people with mental illness as figures reveal one patient waited nearly three days for an ambulance to arrive last year.

Data obtained by the Liberal Democrats shows that ambulance services regularly breached response-time targets in emergency and urgent calls to help patients with a mental health crisis or severe illness last year.

The figures show the longest waits for emergency mental health ambulance callouts, which should be seven minutes on average, were more than two hours in 2022. The longest wait for an urgent callout, which is less of a priority than an emergency call, was more than 70 hours for an ambulance to reach one patient in the south-west of England.

Antidepressants: I wasn't told about the side effects

Posted on 15th August 2023 by Tegan Chelsea

Up to 3m UK people behind on bills have had mental health problems, study says

Posted on 25th July 2023 by Dan Price

Up to 3 million people in the UK who are behind with at least one bill have experienced a mental health problem in the last two years, according to research.

YouGov polling for the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute charity found that 12% of participants were behind on at least one payment such as energy, rent or credit cards, of whom half had a mental health problem. That equates to 3 million people who are behind on a payment and who have experienced a mental health problem in the previous two years, the authors calculated.

In all, people who have had mental health problems in the past two years are three times more likely to be behind on at least one significant bill, the report found, with 60% saying they felt unable to cope due to rising costs. Yet only 9% have received money or debt advice since the start of the cost of living crisis.

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Who should be responsible for mental health care?

Posted on 16th June 2023 by Dan Price

I’m writing in response to your article on mental health support for students in universities (Parents outline ‘woeful’ mental health support for students at UK universities, 2 June). Amid arguments that universities should become quasi-mental health service providers, university staff are already struggling under pressure to support mental health.

My mother is a mental health professional. She had nine years of university and three years of on-the-job training. I had nine years of university and three years of on-the-job training to become a lecturer. My mother’s training involved learning how to protect her own wellbeing while helping others. My training did not. Most university staff are not mental health professionals, and the few who are need more support.

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Awareness of mental health is not enough

Posted on 24th May 2023 by Dan Price

Martha Gill’s argument that mental health definition has become so widened as to become almost meaningless makes a fundamentally important point (Comment). As a society, we have amalgamated several meanings under the umbrella term “mental health”. Mental health should be thought of as three concepts:

 wellbeing that is relevant to all of us, whether we have a mental health disorder or not;

 common mental disorder such as mild to moderate depression and anxiety, which can be discomfiting and need treatment;

 severe mental illness such as psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe personality disorders, addictions and severe depression.

As a psychiatrist, I note this third group remains one of the most neglected groups. Resources are scarce, there are not enough community, recovery and inpatient services and these are all understaffed. Several of us think the conflation of all three strands in media and public discourse has done society a great disservice and attention has shifted from where the need is greatest. Consequently, systemic discrimination and health inequality against the most disadvantaged groups hide in plain sight. Being “aware” of mental health issues is not enough; we need to be mental-health literate so we can prioritise areas with greatest need.

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Millions with mental health needs not seeking NHS help, watchdog says

Posted on 15th February 2023 by Dan Price

Millions of people in England with mental ill-health are not seeking NHS help, and many who get it face long delays and a “poor experience”, a report says.

Long waits for care will persist for years because soaring demand, exacerbated by Covid, will continue to outstrip the ability of severely understaffed mental health services to provide speedy treatment, the National Audit Office (NAO) found.

Whitehall’s spending watchdog praised NHS England for expanding the amount of care that patients with psychological conditions can access since 2016, as part of a government plan to give mental illness “parity of esteem” alongside physical conditions. It has expanded the workforce, introduced new services, treated growing numbers of people and brought in new waiting time targets.

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