Mental Health Matters

Blog 1 Comments

  • Picture of Tom Harrison
    Tom Harrison
    Assistant Researcher, Public Services and Communities
  • Mental health
  • Health & wellbeing
  • Public services

Last November, the RSA undertook a major research project focused on the quality and impact of mental health services at primary care level, where we found inconsistencies and worrying gaps in the way people with mental health diagnoses were being supported and the quality of the services they received. Today we mark World Mental Health Day with an exclusive interview with Jonny Benjamin, mental health campaigner, focusing on what’s next for the mental health campaign.

Mental Health Matters from The RSA on Vimeo.

Watch the event Mental Health Matters (1.30pm BST, 13th October) 

We are at a critical juncture in the campaign for parity of esteem of mental and physical health, where the policy pragmatism of the NHS needs to match recent government rhetoric, and the sentiments laid out in the Mental Health Taskforce, chaired by Sir Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of mental health charity Mind.

Indeed, the RSA’s research last year found that not only were drop-out rates for IAPT services (NHS-funded talking therapies) as high as 90% in some areas, it also found that the degree to which primary care services are meeting the physical health needs of people with mental health illness fails, in many parts of the country, when put under scrutiny.

The RSA found that GP services are under-testing physical illnesses for those with mental health conditions and that 1 in 4 areas in England have worryingly high rates of premature death for people with mental health conditions. We also highlighted local authority areas that were underperforming in enabling people with long term health conditions access to stable accommodation – highlighting that the mental health system both exacerbates and is fuelled by our current housing crisis.

Since then, the latest focus for mental health campaigners has been young people and adolescents. Indeed Jonny Benjamin outlines in our exclusive RSA interview that 75% of mental illness originates in adolescence. Effective education, online support and early intervention is key to ensuring the next generation can effectively navigate the new insecurities in the world – at work and in terms of personal identity – that are compounding increased levels of anxiety and depression.

Concerns have heightened recently, following recent NHS research which has unveiled a new gender gap in health. It has emerged that 12.6% of women aged 16-24 screen positive for post-traumatic stress disorder, 19.7% self-harm and 28.2% have mental health condition, which will be a key focus to our public event with Sarah Brennan, Chief Executive of Young Minds, Lord Victor Adebowale and Jonny Benjamin at our landmark public event this Thursday.

Together, these public health challenges are not only the concern of the NHS, but local and regional authorities - as further devolution of health services, including mental health, are in the pipeline. How young people are involved in shaping those services will remain a key yardstick for success, if areas we’ve highlighted in our work are to measure up to the challenge of supporting the next generation’s mental health.

Watch the event Mental Health Matters (1.30pm BST, 13th October) 

Read our report RSA OPSN Mental Health Report

Follow #RSAHealth @_Tom_Harrison

Join the discussion

1 Comments

Please login to post a comment or reply

Don't have an account? Click here to register.

  • Good health and mental health needs to start with diagnosis by elimination. I have sat in too many meetings with vulnerable young people and several stakeholders pressing for medication; whilst I am pointing out that we need to address the young person's poor motor skills, poor sound processing and double vision. We are not doing any checks for any of these factors. We sell glasses and check each eye can focus 20 feet away (the Snellen test) but we do not check that everyone has two eyes working together (binocular vision) that can send effective messages to the brain. There is pretty much no sound processing therapy available on the NHS in the UK - to help my community I went to France to train with Tomatis (www.tomatis.com) and as a result can massively change people's ability to process sound  http://www.fit-2-learn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Case-Study-18-Year-old-client-with-Aspergers.pdf . Motor skills in the UK are plummeting, every few years Gavin Sandercock, Essex University reports on the further collapse of fitness amongst the young in the UK. After the 2011 riots in Croydon the communities set-up community groups and social enterprises to address the root causes I was one of the founders of Fit 2 Learn CIC. We are using technology to show the basic things that can be changed to enable anyone to live more calmly.