Wednesday, 8 August
What a joy it was to travel down on the train
from Manchester yesterday with so many families en route to the
triathlon, which took place just round the corner from the College
HQ in Belgrave Square. It was a really good atmosphere – what a
sharp contrast with the mental health and human rights news this
week.
On Tuesday authorities in Texas
executed a prisoner, Marvin Wilson, despite arguments that his
low IQ meant he was “too mentally impaired” to receive the death
penalty. This is a moral outrage and goes against a ruling issued
by the US Supreme Court in 1992 outlawing the execution of the
mentally impaired.
Then today,
reports emerged that mental health spending has fallen for the
first time in 10 years. In total, spending on mental health
services in England dropped £150m – the first fall since 2001. I am
keen to address this issue with the government, as it flies in the
face of what they have committed to. Although the Department
of Health has pointed out that investment in psychological
therapies has increased significantly in real terms by 6%, this
spending reduction cannot be dismissed – however successful or
otherwise the IAPT programme may prove to be over time. Nor can it
be dismissed by the local and focal mantra.
This is about patients with mental illness
being denied the sustained access to services and treatment that
they need, compounded by often being in demographic groups with the
most adverse social determinants that mitigate against recovery.
In my blog on 27 July, I told you that I was
working with the Mental Health Collaborative to build up a solid
picture of workforce changes across mental health nursing,
psychology, occupational therapy and social work. We should also
have our own workforce census out shortly.
And more gloomy news today with reports that
the Bank of England has cut its growth forecast to close to zero.
The BBC
reports that the double-dip recession is intensifying. We know that
both mental and physical health are negatively affected by economic
downturns, and mental health is more vulnerable to harm than
physical health.
We have a survey
on our website about how the recession has affected people’s mental
health. It is still early days in terms of results, but the
responses we’ve received so far are starting to indicate that the
recession is impacting on patients and their families. And of
course there is the additional stressor of the new assessment
processes for those people on benefits. We will continue building
up a picture of the situation, and I’ll of course keep you
updated.
Sue
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