Hope is on the horizon for mental health
The Guardian – December 9, 2009
Summary: Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, writes about his vision for mental health services in the UK. McCulloch points out that, ten years ago, the National Service Framework (NSF) was launched in the UK. This framework was a new approach to detailed policy-making in healthcare. This marked a major victory for mental health advocates in that one of the three priorities of this initiative was mental health and demonstrated that its importance had been recognized. Since then, mental health services in England have been at least partly transformed, and resources increased by about 50%. Despite this significant progress, McCulloch argues that the enormous need is still not being met. “Mental illness costs the UK economy £100bn a year, and one in four adults experience a mental health problem each year”, he states. After a 2-year collaboration between the mental health sector and the government, New Horizons, a vision for mental health, has been launched. This program is important for several reasons: it understands that good mental health can be delivered only by cross-government action, it highlights the need for a mentally healthy population, and it acknowledges the fact that our mental health is important to all of us. “When is comes to helping those with a severe or enduring mental illness, the vision advocates a recovery-based approach. This means services will need to support individuals to rebuild their lives and achieve the goals they want…..The next stage must be to work on the specifics, but the challenge will be to do with so little resource.”