NHS: Breaking Through on Mental Health

Today is World Mental Health Day and after 25 years of using the day to promote mental health education health officials say they are finally making strides in improving awareness and fighting social stigma surrounding the problem.

Finally Talking

NHS officials say there has been a significant and long-overdue lift in the number of people who are willing to discuss mental health problems, a crucial step in battling conditions that affect one in four people.

A YouGov poll this year found that two-thirds of respondents knew at least one person suffering from a mental illness, and there has been a marked improvement in the proportion of people willing to come forward to seek help.

The World Federation for Mental Health, a global group with links in 150 countries, first used October 10 as an annual opportunity to focus on the issue in 1992 and organisers say there have been remarkable strides in recent years.

Paul Farmer, the head of the mental health charity Mind, says more people now feel “empowered to speak out about their experiences in schools, workplaces and in their communities.” As a result, he said, “we are starting to see for the first time the scale of the unmet need.”

“We are entering an important new chapter for mental health where we now need to turn this unprecedented public awareness into action. Mental health can no longer be overlooked and underfunded. We want to see everyone experiencing a mental health problem being able to access the treatments and services they need, when and where they need them.”

The challenge now is to match that increased awareness with NHS resources to cope with the rising need for services. The largest shortage of nurses in the NHS is in the mental health sector, and there is a worrying shortage of pyschiatrists.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has trumpeted an injection of new support, saying that more nurses will be trained and promising that there will be an extra 570 psychiatrists at work within four years but the professional body for psychiatrists says his numbers do not add up.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists points to one hard fact: it takes 13 years to train a consultant psychiatrist.

Almost Impossible

Brexit has made it harder to retain let alone recruit foreign medical specialists, placing more pressure than ever on the ability of Britain to train its own specialists if it is to meet its own targets for dealing with shortages.

“It’s seems an almost impossible task when you consider how long it takes to train,” Hannah Perlin of the RCP told Felix Magazine.

“When the Government talk about extra psychiatrists they are talking years away, they have set a target of 570 by 2020-21. There’s now a huge amount of work to actively encourage medical students who have already chosen to be doctors or surgeons, to instead choose psychiatry.“

But even if that can be achieved, it will take time. A long 13 years made up of a five-year degree in medicine recognised by the General Medical Council; a two-year foundation course which forms a bridge between medical school and specialist or general practice training; then a six-year specialist training course in psychiatry.

The six-year programme requires three years of core training which covers a range of psychiatric sub-specialities, such as children and adolescents, older people, forensic and perinatal, and then three years of higher training focussing on one or two psychiatric sub-specialities.

And yet the government’s target date is just four years away, notes Perlin, the college’s senior communications officer. “All we can do is to try and increase the interest in psychiatry. How do we do that? One of the ways is we are now trying to talk about severe mental illness and not simply common mental disorders which are spoken about a lot in the press and there are many celebrities who talk a lot about their anxiety and depression.”

“That is fantastic because there is less stigma and more people who feel able to come forward when they feel their mental health is not quite in check. But it means we are not talking about the mental illnesses which are only diagnosed and treated by the psychiatrists.”

by Peter Wilson

 

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