Preventing mental illness: Our manifesto for the next UK general election

The next UK General Election will take place within twelve months.

Political parties are currently shaping their messages and preparing their manifestos. This is the time for the Royal College of Psychiatrists to act and call on the parties and their manifesto writers to prioritise mental health and recognise that there is #NoHealthWithoutMentalHealth.

If you accept there is #NoHealthWithoutMentalHealth, you can prevent people from dying 20 years too early. You can prevent their sickness from becoming a lifelong battle with mental illness. You can prevent people from being off work.

Over the coming weeks and months, Dr Lade Smith CBE, RCPsych President, will be meeting with political parties and political influencers to highlight the requests of our manifesto, which focuses on prevention and calls on all political parties to prioritise working towards preventing mental illness by:

• Reducing the occurrence and, therefore, the prevalence of severe mental illness.
• Funding and resourcing mental health services to recover capacity and expand to meet growing demand.
• Addressing the treatment and mortality gap for people with mental illness and severe mental illness.
• Growing and supporting the wellbeing of the mental health workforce.
• Prioritising mental health research and data collection to improve understanding and facilitate innovation.