Austerity Has Compounded the Mental Health Crisis

Bryan Blears

Last week at PMQs, Jeremy Corbyn challenged Theresa May over the Conservatives record on
mental health spending. He was referring to a report produced by The Kings Fund, who estimated that
around 40 percent of mental health trusts have faced year-on-year budget cuts since 2011. Research
conducted by the BBC confirmed that between 2011 and 2015, mental health trust budgets were cut
by 8.25 percent across the country, while at the same time, demand for mental health services has
increased by around 20 percent. This is putting great strain on A&E departments and the police, who
are having to deal with more cases of mental illness in the place of properly trained psychiatric staff.
The figures are damning but even moreso are the real stories of people affected by the cuts. Take, for
example, the experience of Sascha, a 16-year-old girl who was kept in an adult psychiatric ward for
three months recently due to a lack of beds in Cornwall, surrounded by terminally ill patients and
people suffering from dementia. Or theres the story of a 26-year-old homeless woman who had been
the victim of a sexual assault and was held by police in Exeter for two nights awaiting transfer. In
another case in 2015, also in Exeter, a man was kept in prison for nine months due to a lack of beds
available in the south-west of England. He had been diagnosed as needing immediate psychiatric care
by the two doctors who examined him shortly after his arrest.
For some patients there are no beds available anywhere across the country others have to travel long
distances to be admitted to hospital. The usage of section 136 powers which allow the police to
detain people under the Mental Health Act has increased by 50 percent in the past 10 years, meaning
that people who are mentally unwell are often detained in police cells at risk of further harm until a
bed becomes available. A&E departments are also under pressure as they are often the only place
people experiencing a mental health crisis feel that they can go. According to NHS improvement
people suffering from a mental health condition are three times more likely to present at A&E than the
general population. But the Care Quality Commission found in 2015 that A&E departments are not fit
to cope with people experiencing a mental health crisis and that current responses are unsafe and
unacceptable.
At the same time, researchers at Oxford and Liverpool Universities have established clear links
between the changes to out-of-work disability benefits under the Tories and an increase in cases of
mental illness. They estimated that the fit-to-work tests highlighted in the new Ken Loach film I,
Daniel Blake, have resulted in 590 additional suicides and 279,000 cases of mental illness across the
country. These additional cases, while being completely avoidable, have received no extra funding
from the Conservative government. In fact, the Conservatives have been doing the opposite cutting
community mental health by 4.9 percent under David Camerons government and reducing local
authority spending, which plays an important part in providing support services within the
community, by 200m last year. At present, local authorities allocate on average a mere 1 percent of
their budgets to preventing mental illness. That is despite mental health problems accounting for 23
percent of all disease in the UK and being responsible for 90 percent of suicides and suicide attempts.
The most worrying pressure is upon CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services). The
numbers of children and adolescents affected by mental health problems is a growing concern; with
the NSPCC alone dealing with 92,981 cases last year, with 5,644 of those also involving abuse or
neglect. Remember these arent psychiatric criminals, but children dealing with traumatic episodes

of abuse. Children experiencing depression or who are self-harming are some of our most vulnerable
members of society, but increasingly they are finding that the mental health services which should
support them are oversubscribed. Research conducted by the NSPCC found that 1 in 6 children
referred to CAHMS services were turned away last year. Children whose needs are ignored by the
government are far more likely to turn to substance misuse, criminal or suicidal behaviour.
Much of the investment which could reduce the number of instances of mental illness in children is
also being reduced under the Conservatives. The Early Intervention Grant, for example, is set to be
cut by 60 percent by 2020 under the governments existing plans it has already been cut by over 50
percent since it was established in 2010. An independent report carried out by Graham Allen MP in
2011 argued that Early Intervention was low in cost, high in results ... [and] has significant
implications for levels of physical, emotional and mental health, individual achievement and violent
crime. Over 750 Sure Start centres which were also aimed at giving people the best start in life have
been closed since 2010. These cuts are taking place against a backdrop of increased numbers of cases
of child abuse and neglect.
Tragically, many of these children wont survive their traumatic experiences. One in four young
people experience suicidal thoughts, and suicide is the single largest killer of men under 45 in the UK.
Rather than addressing this issue, the current governments regime of cuts has compounded the
problem, resulting in an increased number of cases and reduced funding, across the board, to deal with
the growing mental health crisis. What is also clear is that it is societys most vulnerable who are most
affected, with young people, the homeless, BAME and LGBT groups disproportionately at risk of
self-harm or suicide. Due to year-on-year budget cuts across impatient and community services, as
well as a decrease funding aimed at prevention such as the Early Intervention Grant, mental health
services are failing to provide safe and adequate care across the country. The sufferers of mental
health problems are increasingly being detained in police custody, or are sadly taking their own lives,
instead of being offered the medical treatment which they desperately need.