Mental health care

Mental health care

It seems to in be that in present-day Britain, we all have a waiting list story. Within mental health services, the idea of primary care is slipping away. The target wait time for a new patient to access primary care was assessed to be 28 days by the Equality and Human Rights Commission85 . As a response to this mental ill health pandemic specialist children and young people services received a 25% cut to their budgets between 2011/1386 . “The proportion those patients who started treatment within 28 days varied between 3.0% and 96% in 2013-14 depending on the clinical commissioning groups. 11% of patients waited over 90 days.87”

From 2010/13 the British Medical Journal reported that one million people had their right for disability benefits reassessed under the governments Work Capability Assessment88 . The revaluation was intended to reduce the amount of people receiving the benefit by a compulsory assessment to determine if the disabled person is fit for work. If they were assessed as fit to work, they would have their eligibility for funding forcibly removed89 . The University of Liverpool and the University of Oxford carried out an observational study,

85 Equality and Human Rights Commission, Being disabled in Britain: A journey less equal [Accessed 1 December 2020] (pp. 2 -10). 86 Equality and Human Rights Commission, Being disabled in Britain: A journey less equal [Accessed 1 December 2020] (pp. 2 -10). 87 Equality and Human Rights Commission, Being disabled in Britain: A journey less equal [Accessed 1 December 2020] (pp. 1 -85). 88 Benjamin Barr, David Taylor-Robinson, David Stuckler, ‘First, do no harm’: are disability assessments associated with adverse trends in mental health? A longitudinal ecological study’ J Epidemiol Community Health, Vol 70. 4 (2016) 339-345 <https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/70/4/339.full.pdf > [Accessed 1 December 2020] 89 Department for work and pensions, Guidance, A guide to Employment and Support Allowance – the Work Capability Assessment. (2016) <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esa214-a-guide-to-employmentand-support-allowance-the-work-capability-assessment/a-guide-to-employment-and-support-allowance-thework-capability-assessment> [Accessed 22 January 2021]

called: ‘First do no harm: are disability assessments associated with adverse trends in mental health? A longitudinal ecological study’ The conclusions found by the study are as follows:

“The programme of reassessing people on disability benefits using the Work Capability Assessment was independently associated with an increase in suicides, self-reported mental health problems and antidepressant prescribing. This policy may have had serious adverse consequences for mental health in England, which could outweigh any benefits that arise from moving people off disability benefits.” 90

The Mirror newspaper reported this story, “as the fitness to work tests linked to 590 extra suicides in England say experts”91 . The paper reported 279,000 additional mental ill-health cases and published the figure of 725,000 further prescriptions for antidepressants having been issued, and all said to be associated with the work capability assessment 2010/13. The NHS criticised their findings by saying “The researchers say the figure could be anywhere between 220 and 950, which is quite a wide margin of error 92.” Researchers expanded upon the evidence and concluded that as this was the first study into the effects, the WCA policy has on mental health, and the results showed that: “doctors should consider their involvement in implementing WCAs on ethical grounds.” 93

90 ‘First, do no harm’: are disability assessments associated with adverse trends in mental health? A longitudinal ecological study’ [Accessed 1 December 2020] (pp. 4- 339). 91 Ben Glaze, Fitness to work tests linked to 590 extra suicides in England say experts, (2015) <https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fitness-work-tests-linked-590-6844546>[Accessed 28 January 2021] 92 NHS, Study suggests disability test link to suite risk. (2015) <https://www.nhs.uk/news/mental-health/studysuggests-disability-test-link-to-suicide-risk/> [Accessed 1 December 2020] 93 NHS, Study suggests disability test link to suite risk. [Accessed 1 December 2020]