Miliband speech on mental health

Posted Monday 29 October 2012

Ed Miliband has today made a speech about mental health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, following an event earlier this morning where the Labour Party signed a Time to Change pledge.

In response, Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, said:

Mental health is everyone's business. We are now seeing politicians finally realise that it isn't just the responsibility of health services to support people with mental health problems and that they have their own role to play in changing attitudes.

Mental health can affect every aspect of a person's life and we need proper commitment from all areas of society if we are to address the inequalities that people with mental health problems face.

Politicians need to take the initiative along with business leaders, community and faith leaders, schools and the media to give mental health the priority it deserves and help ensure that the one in four of us with mental health problems get the support we need.

We welcome a commitment to giving mental health the same status as physical health. 

Despite improvements, access to therapies for mental health problems is still patchy, in a way that would be unacceptable for physical health problems.

We need to see better access to talking therapies, with shorter waiting times, so that people can choose the treatment that is right for them at the time that they need it.

Louise from Mind’s policy and campaigns team was at the speech and share her thoughts in our blog.

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