Mental health is probably the worst it has ever been – with the cost-of-living crisis, aftermath of the Covid pandemic and global instability pushing people to the brink, the head of a major charity has warned. Charity are really worried about the impact the cost-of-living crisis will have on people’s mental health but despite the nation’s mental health suffering, the issue has fallen down the political agenda.
The pandemic, cost-of-living crisis and wars in Ukraine and the middle east and ensuing global instability could drive vulnerable people to suicide. This is a significant and really worried and does feels like a bit of a perfect storm that we need to take hold of.
All of these things contribute greatly to the vulnerability that we are all experiencing to a greater or lesser extent.
What we know is after the financial crash in 2008 the number of people taking their own lives increased – we don’t want that to happen again. Mental Health has fallen down the agenda for the public. But I have seen a slow down in the conversations that we are having with policy makers, a sort of sense ‘we have been there we have done that we have already achieved the ambition to get parity.
However we know that’s not quite the case because mental health was coming from an underinvested place, so any investment has just filled a previous gap.
The Government can’t afford for mental health to slip down its agenda, but I can understand why it might happen – the sight of ambulances waiting outside A&E is terribly frightening. But some of that is people trying to get help for their mental health as well. There has to be much better and provision in place to assist people who are coming for their first episode of mental health, picking people up at the first opportunity.