The UK isn't doing enough for mental health

It’s not like me to get political. A lot of politics doesn’t interest me. I’m not someone who stays hidden away in their own happy place, blissfully unaware of the government, but I don’t actively keep up with everything that’s going on, until an election looms. That being said, government attitudes towards mental health bother me.

There are a number of reasons, most of which revolve around boring stats, but the majority of problems come from spending. As a country that provides free healthcare to its citizens, we are not spending nearly enough on mental health.

According to The Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Mental Health Integration Index”, the UK are placed second best in Europe, only slightly behind Germany in dealing with mental health. In comparison, Germany spend around 11% of their health budget on mental health, while last year, the UK spent just 4%. To say that both countries were very similarly scored in the index ignores this huge difference between the two. No doubt the government celebrated their success, but continue to ignore just how far behind other similar countries we really are.

When you consider that mental health makes up 12% of disabilities in this country, and 1 in 4 people will suffer with a mental health problem every year, spending 4% of the NHS budget is something of a joke. On a personal level, I’ve approached doctors about my problems who have no idea how to handle them, telling me to go for a run every day and hope that the depression and social anxiety fades rather than tackling the problem.

The people that we contact when we are low should at least have a tiny understanding of what we’re going through. I know people who have called 999 in a crisis as they don’t feel like they are safe in their own hands, only to be visited by the police and made to sit in a prison cell overnight. If someone called the emergency services because they had been stabbed by a stranger, there would outrage if they had to sit in prison overnight, but when it comes to mental health, nobody seems to bat an eye. There is a severe lack of education around the subject, for schools and professionals alike.

It isn’t just nationwide spending either, local authorities are also doing less than they should to deal with the problem. Charity Mind found that local authorities are spending just over 1% of their health budget on preventing mental health problems developing. Figures can sometimes seem overwhelming, so think of it this way: how much effort have you seen in your local area to prevent lung cancer due to smoking? Or heart disease, diabetes, or absolutely anything to do with eating wrong? Now think how often you see help in preventing anxiety, depression or eating disorders. Many mental health problems can be prevented, yet we are barely spending any money to do so. People aren’t even being taught about them at school or in day to day life like they are other diseases and illnesses.

This lack of education and government spending means that people are not supporting mental health research with pubic donations. The chief executive of the charity MQ: Transforming Mental Health pointed out that for every pound that the government spent on research, the public donated just one third of a penny, unlike research for cancer, where the public provide £2.75 for every £1 the government spends. It’s not that the general public do not care about mental health, they simply just don’t know about it, or understand enough about it and that, in a large way, is due to the lack of care by the government.

If the government spend more money on such a widespread issue, rather than rejoicing that they are doing a single thing at all, then the public will understand and match that support. Mental health is a huge issue that, untreated, is costing the country money, but that very same country refuses to spend a decent amount of money to prevent it, or to help those who are suffering. Enough with the baby steps forward, something needs doing and it needs doing now.