What can be done to reduce the waiting time for access to mental health services in the region of Kent?

By Mike Eddy, Green Party Councillor for Mill Hill, Deal

Mind the mental health charity said in 2018 that NHS England should introduce a maximum four-week waiting time for Psychological Therapies (IAPT) care.

Kent MPs were told in June last year that 1,481 children in the county have been waiting 18 weeks for treatment, 144 of them for over 52 weeks.

Since 2017, North East London NHS Foundation Trust have taken over Kent Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. It is similar for older patients.

It is ridiculous to blame the professionals of the NHS which has been fragmented and run-down by Conservative politicians since they passed the Health and Social Care Act in 2012, and paved the way to privatising health services.

In my case work as a councillor, it is apparent that the ever-widening inequalities in our society contribute to mental health problems and impede recovery. Evidence from the House of Commons library shows, “Poorer people were less likely to recover as a result of treatment under the IAPT programme than the better-off”, and the disabled and minorities also have lower levels of recovery.

What can be done?

1. The NHS needs to be taken back into public ownership so that profiteering corporates with friends in government stop taking their cut from funding.
2. We need serious long-term investment in the mental health services of the NHS so that we turn round the problem of understaffing (nurses and doctors). This would also free up our police who are called in time and again across Kent to help ill people who become a danger to themselves or others.
3. We need some joined-up thinking between the Dept of Work and Pensions, answerable for Universal Credit and the Dept for Health and Social Care because we see increases in referrals for mental health services following the introduction of Universal Credit.

The post How can we reduce the waiting time for access to mental health services in Kent?  appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

MUCH more funding should be available for the treatment of mental health, not research. We know what the problems are, and what helps IF it is available, how many health service cuts there’ve been and how harsh austerity policies push more people to the edge.

Caseloads are so high and staffing levels so low that people who have attempted suicide are falling through the gaps, as the report by CQC on Kent and Medway NHS Trust said last year.

Kent police have had an 18% cut in funding, but have to step in for public safety reasons when those who need to be admitted for care are turned away, and nationally it’s the same.

Our young people are driven to the edge. A recent BMJ article mentions a 68% increase in hospital self- harm presentations in 13-16 year olds between 2011 and 2014.

CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) are under-resourced. NHS England admits that only one in four under-18s with a diagnosable mental health problem receives treatment.

If a Dover youngster does get a bed it is miles away at Ticehurst. This, in the sixth richest country in the world?

Ah, but we’ve the greatest level of inequality in Europe. Our NHS money must not slip into the shareholder pockets of Circle/Virgin Healthcare through NHS privatisation.

The dominant model of psychiatry is driven by pharmaceutical companies. Acute conditions are treated by hospitalisation, top-down diagnoses by psychiatrists, then some pretty heavy-duty medications.

Chronic conditions, treated in the community, are also heavily dependent on drug therapy, because cheaper than other, more effective therapies.

In contrast, the Green Party believe that the best mental health care is informed by the experiences of mental health service-users themselves.

Evidence shows that more equal societies have lower levels of ill health.

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