02.02.11
Healthy boost for mental health
‘New money’ – those magic words we have been hearing so much less over the past few years.
But £400m for mental health services announced today is just that, with many laudable aims – improving counselling for children, getting people back into work, helping traumatised veterans and tackling discrimination.
Many charities and campaigners have reacted with understandable caution, suggesting some of the money might be better spent keeping existing children’s services running, by protecting SureStart centres and voluntary projects from the cuts.
But the scale of mental health issues in this country means the Government is right to be giving this such a big push today and making the symbolic steps too of prioritising it as “urgent” and saying it deserves the same attention as physical health. It is similarly bringing the law into line with physical health by scrapping the requirement that MPs detained under the Mental Health Act automatically lose their seats.
It is bracing to think that this huge new focus on mental health services could be entirely funded by the savings made through better buying practices by NHS hospitals. Half a billion here, half a billion there – with more efficient working throughout the health service, there may yet be more welcome announcements like today’s before this Parliament is done.
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