MayBee70
Casdon
Dickens
tickingbird
MH care and support has been sadly lacking for a long time. It should be high priority for any future government.
I doubt very much it will be. Even with a Labour government.
The priority with both Tory and Labour is to get spending under control. Starmer's already sort of hinted that we shouldn't expect any 'largesse'.
Until a politician or two is affected personally by the results of cuts to MH services, or any of the other public services, they will tinker around the edges, and talk about it. But these issues largely don't affect them... they don't hang around at bus stops, walk home from a night out, and they certainly don't live in rough areas or those that have high rates of criminal activity.
Nothing will change, that's guaranteed.
If we had the greatest government ever and endless funding it would still take a very long time to turn mental health services around. Recruitment is a huge problem, it’s a difficult job which is not for many people. I’ve got every admiration for people who work on the coal face of adult mental health.
It all goes back to ‘care in the community’ imo. ie close down the mental hospitals and throw everyone out on to the streets with no medical back up or accommodation. A scheme which, I believe, originated in Sweden but they actually put the money into making it work….I seem to remember several attacks back then by paranoid schizophrenics and wonder what has been done to resolve the problem since then.
You’re right Maybee, it goes back to the 1970s. It didn’t start off as you described it though, it was a very slow and carefully thought out process in the first few years, and for many people it was the right solution, they shouldn’t have been in a psychiatric hospital. Staffing issues go back that far too, I can’t think of any point in my long career in the NHS when there weren’t vacancies in mental health specialties.
There were some improvements in the early 2000s, particularly with the growth of crisis and early intervention schemes - but the number of acute beds in particular has reduced too far, and there aren’t the staff in the community to keep people safely at home either now.