In the United Kingdom, poor mental health is the largest cause of disability. It is also related to other problems such as poor physical health, problems in relationships, work, and education prospects.
Because of this, the UK government has taken steps to enhance their mental health services, making it more accessible and effective for its citizens.
Here are the actions that the UK government has taken to improve mental health services.
Prioritizing mental health
We want public services to reflect the importance of mental health in their planning, putting it on a par with physical health. So we are:
- making better access to mental health services and shorter waiting times a priority for NHS England
- making reducing mental health problems a priority for Public Health England, the new national public health service
- making mental health part of the new national measure of wellbeing, so it's more likely to be taken into account when government creates policy
- providing £400 million between 2011 and 2015 to give more people access to psychological therapies - including adults with depression, and children and young people
- providing up to £16 million of funding over 4 years for Time to Change, the campaign against mental health stigma and discrimination
We have also set up a taskforce to recommend how to improve mental health services for children and young people. The taskforce will publish its findings in spring 2015.
Effectiveness of mental health services
We want to increase the impact of mental health services by:
- changing how we track success in mental health services, so we measure the things that matter most to the people using them
- reviewing health visiting and school nursing services, to check that staff have the right training to identify and help parents, children and young people with mental health problems
So we have developed MindEd, an online service to provide guidance and training on child mental health for teachers, police, health professionals and other people working with children.
Access to mental health services
There's evidence that mental health services aren't meeting the needs of some groups of people. For example only 1 in 6 older people with depression ever discuss it with their GP.
So we're giving local health and wellbeing boards a duty to reduce health inequalities in their area, including in mental health.
Preventing suicides
Overall, the number of suicides in England has fallen over the past 10 years, but with a small rise since 2007. The suicide rate is higher for some groups, including young and middle aged men, people in the care of mental health services and prisoners. There were 4,524 suicides in 2012.
So we've published guidance on preventing suicide to help health professionals, mental health services, police, prisons and others save more lives.
Mental health for veterans
To improve mental health services for former members of the military, we are:
- recruiting more therapists to treat veterans
- making more counseling services for veterans available online
- funding the 24-hour Combat Stress mental health helpline for veterans
- providing training for GPs and other NHS staff on veterans' mental health needs
Mental health for offenders
We want to make sure that offenders' mental health problems are identified as soon as possible, and that they have access to the same mental health services as everyone else. So we will:
- by 2014, set up a national liaison and diversion service to help identify offenders' mental health problems earlier and make sure they're getting the right treatment
- give more offenders with personality disorders access to treatment by making it available in prisons, rather than relying on secure units in hospitals
From www.gov.uk
