THURROCK MP Jackie Doyle-Price rose on the floor of the House of Commons to answer a question on “mental health stigma”
Luciana Berger Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Wavertree
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his speech at the Charity Commission’s annual meeting on 7 January 2017, The shared society, what steps the Government has taken to reduce mental health stigma since July 2016.
Jackie Doyle-Price The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care said:
This Government is committed to eliminating the stigma around mental health. We provide funding to the Time to Change national mental health anti-stigma campaign to improve social attitudes about mental health. Evaluation of the campaign has shown that over four million people have to date reported improved attitudes towards mental health as a result of the campaign.
The Government has also committed to equip one million people to be better able to look after their own mental health, so Public Health England is currently leading the development of a £15 million national mental health campaign called ‘Every Mind Matters’. The first pilot of interventions began in October 2018 in the Midlands ahead of a national launch this year.
The Government announced the first Suicide Prevention Minister in the United Kingdom in October 2018, working across national and local government to tackle the stigma around suicide and encouraging people to talk openly about their mental health and wellbeing. Through the Cross-Government Suicide Prevention Strategy we work with many suicide prevention organisations which work to challenge stigma.
“Evaluation of the campaign has shown that over four million people have to date reported improved attitudes towards mental health as a result of the campaign” – There’s a bit missing there: ‘But we Tories have exactly the same attitude to mental health as we always have. We couldn’t give a crap about it.’
“The Government has also committed to equip one million people to be better able to look after their own mental health” – There’s a bit missing there as well: ‘…because we continue to underfund the statutory mental health services and that million people we are helping are predominantly Tory voter strongholds.’
“the development of a £15 million national mental health campaign called ‘Every Mind Matters’” – Another bit missing there: ‘…which is a drop in the ocean to what’s actually needed but we want to look as if we care when we really don’t’.
“The Government announced the first Suicide Prevention Minister in the United Kingdom in October 2018” – The missing bit is: ‘…who just happens to be myself and it led to an instant spike in the number of suicides. We also felt the need to do something about the suicide rate as this government is responsible for the massive increase in suicides since 2010.’
Time To Change is fine but it doesn’t do half as good a job as it thinks it does and, despite the ‘evaluation’ JD-P cites, the predominant attitude towards mental health and people with mental health issues continues to be abominable.