Government goes big on mental health

By Sunil Peck

The government has unveiled a raft of measures which it says represents a "radical shift" in its approach to mental health.

It has published a strategy for preventing mental health conditions developing among those at risk including victims of physical and sexual abuse, homeless people and ex-servicemen.

It also published two reports on helping people with mental health conditions stay in work and a report on improving job prospects for people with mental health conditions who are out of work.

The government's strategy includes employing mental health co-ordinators in job centres to provide support by developing links between health and employment services and the launch of nine occupational health advice line pilots to give small businesses in Britain support to retain employees with mental health conditions.

Ministers are also looking at ways to extend the Access to Work programme including providing funding for temporary cover when a person is off work because of their condition and notifying job applicants and employers of the level of support they can expect.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Yvette Cooper said that the government was keen to help people find and retain work because evidence suggests that employment benefits a person's mental health.

She said: "The vast majority of people with mental health conditions work, but for some people it can be very hard to stay in a job. If people fall out of work and onto benefits it is even harder for them to get back into work as it can be a real knock to their confidence."

Speaking to Disability Now after the launch, Phil Hope said that the government's vision marked a "radical shift" in the government's approach to mental health.

He said: "I think that depression is coming out of the shadows now and people are beginning to recognise how mental ill health is not only something that we ought to be able to respond better to, but that it can also affect other aspects of your life. If we can improve peoples' mental health, we can improve many other aspects of their lives."

Dr Rachel Perkins from South West London and St George’s Mental Health Trust, a service user and clinical psychologist who was commissioned to write the report on supporting unemployed people with mental health conditions, said that professionals in health and social services needed to have more faith in the ability of people with mental health conditions to do a job.

She said: "I was told twenty years ago that I should find something less stressful and that being a clinical psychologist was going to be too much for me. Fortunately I was non-compliant. But how many people have believed that advice?"

Paul Jenkins, Chief Executive of Rethink, welcomed the government's vision, but added that he was concerned by the government's failure to explain how its vision would be funded.

"We know that in a recession mental health budgets are vulnerable to cuts and we need to hear some government guarantees about funding priorities."