Enough excuses – the time has come to get Britain’s mental health crisis under control

Editorial: Despite the well-known tribulations the NHS has been beset by, it is also a moment for hope, and even some optimism

The health secretary Steve Barclay has launched a public inquiry into mental health deaths across Essex (BBC)

Despite so many high-profile celebrities, politicians, sports personalities and members of the royal family speaking out about the care of people with mental health conditions in recent years, there is still much to do.

Britain, sadly, remains a place where equity in therapy for mental and physical health has still not been achieved, and where even a mild disturbance to someone’s mental wellbeing carries a stigma that would simply not be applied if they were, say, wearing a plaster cast to fix a broken arm.

Certainly, more resources have gone into psychiatric and psychological care in recent years – and Theresa May deserves to be remembered and thanked for her leadership role in that respect – but financial resources are not enough. Not only does there need to be parity of care for mental illness, but parity of respect for those suffering from it.

As The Independent’s pioneering journalism has revealed, that has too often been found wanting. Last year, for example, this newspaper pursued several investigations exposing systemic abuse of children within private mental health hospitals run by the former Huntercombe Group. More than 50 patients blew the whistle on failings lasting a decade or more. The hospital owner has since been forced to close one of its children’s services in Maidenhead after our reporting led to inquiries by the Care Quality Commission and NHS England.

Now the secretary of state for health and social care, Steve Barclay, has responded to our reportage and to wider pressure from public figures such as David Beckham and the Prince of Wales. Mr Barclay is creating a new taskforce to investigate mental health care and has also launched a public inquiry into deaths across Essex, prompted by The Independent’s coverage.

The public inquiry in Essex will now have powers to compel former staff of the Essex mental health trust to come forward with evidence. It follows the campaigns waged by dozens of bereaved families to achieve a modicum of justice, and the government, as with the Covid inquiry, is right to place victims and the bereaved at the centre of things.

What is most encouraging is the sense that the government is also taking action on a truly national scale. The taskforce will be focusing throughout the land and in every hospital and care unit on the specific tasks that need attention, now moving beyond the phase of awareness-building. Mr Barclay promises a “wide-ranging” review by the new taskforce and will examine crucial, detailed aspects of care. This includes inappropriate out-of-area placements, care for young people with mental health needs, safer staffing models, and a greater obligation to learn from tragic deaths.

A combination of adequate funding, conscientious, well-trained staff, and much more effective and constructive scrutiny will help ensure that mental health care never slides into the state of squalid neglect it existed in for such a long, shameful time.

This is also a vital time for the Department of Health and Social Care to improve mental health provision. Anxiety is commonplace in modern life, and the pace of technological change and social media has meant many young people are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress.

As well as that, the cost of living crisis will inevitably push more people to the edge – not knowing how to pay the bills, being refused money at the cash machine or having a card declined at the till, and losing one’s home are all real and present threats to the mental stability of otherwise fit and healthy people. The aftermath of the pandemic lockdowns, necessary as they were to control the virus, has also included an uptick in mental health cases.

This a moment, then, for action. However, despite the well-known tribulations the NHS has been beset by, it is also a time for hope, and even some optimism. We should celebrate progress, and press on until full equality of care and esteem between mental and physical has been achieved, as it will be.

As Mr Barclay acknowledges: “Gone are the days of isolating those with mental illness or treating them with brutality and contempt. This government will continue to learn the lessons of the past to improve mental health services across the country.” Indeed so, and we warmly applaud his efforts.