After a rather unruly leadership contest between former prime minister Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, one thing was strikingly absent from debate: the UK’s ongoing mental health crisis. Many of the debate topics focused on the cost of living, immigration and foreign policy, which all touched on a common thread but never deeply explored it; the way daily life for the average person is getting harder, and how constant exposure to small indignities, negative events, and overall challenging circumstances is leaving us all drained.
The knock-on effect is obvious and keenly felt, with increasingly poor mental health reported on a national scale. Anyone who has tried to access counselling or therapy through the NHS will know there is extreme pressure on mental health services, probably more than any other area – yet they have historically not been considered as much of a priority compared to acute NHS services like A&E.
This is arguably the correct course of action; a heart attack or car accident is far more likely to be fatal, and in a shorter timespan too. But a mental health condition can greatly impair your ability to do and enjoy things that you once could, can persist over a long period of time, and can progressively worsen your quality of life. Chronic or complex mental ill health is a risk factor for physical ill health in the long-term, and any distress felt and acted on by one person can ripple out to family, friends, acquaintances and strangers. Seeking help is therefore a logical thing to do, and many people are not able to access services through any other means but the NHS – so the longer the delay in receiving quality support from the NHS, the worse the situation snowballs.
So, what has the incumbent government said about how they’re going to attempt to ameliorate the crisis in mental health services in a post-Covid, pre-conflict world?
The new Labour government has announced a commitment to prioritise mental health on par with physical health. To tackle mental health waiting times, Labour plans to recruit 8,500 new mental health staff in its first term, with special training to support individuals at risk of suicide. Additionally, Labour promises to ensure every school has access to specialist mental health professionals and to establish Young Futures hubs. These hubs will offer open-access mental health services for children and young people in every community. This was a big campaign promise, and it remains to be seen whether changes can be made in a meaningful way, which may require regulatory and legislative changes.
On that, Labour is set to modernise mental health legislation, aiming to enhance patient choice, autonomy, rights, and support, ensuring dignified and respectful treatment for all. The party has criticised the current Mental Health Act as outdated and discriminatory, especially against Black people, who are disproportionately detained under the Act. Labour has also voiced concerns about the treatment of individuals with autism and learning difficulties under the existing legislation. While the Conservatives made some progress in reforming the Mental Health Act, Labour is expected to accelerate these reforms. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has pledged to introduce a new mental health bill as part of Labour’s first legislative programme, and the King's Speech on 17th July included the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, expected to legislate some of these goals into law.
It's uncertain whether Labour will adopt the Conservatives' 2022 draft bill, amend it, or propose a new bill. Just this week, Wes Streeting states that patients cannot trust CQC ratings of health facilities (the CQC being England’s health and social care regulator), and that more oversight will be needed – which includes mental health services. Labour may take to integrating recommendations from previous reform proposals, such as creating a statutory mental health commissioner, introducing a "responsible person" role to monitor inequalities, and abolishing community treatment orders. The new government may also implement safeguards to reduce the detention of individuals with learning disabilities and ASC in psychiatric hospitals, although the fate of the Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS), postponed indefinitely by the Conservatives in 2023, remains unclear – Labour previously opposed the LPS legislation, arguing it weakened existing safeguards for individuals without capacity. The current deprivation of liberty safeguards system is under strain, with significant delays leaving vulnerable individuals without legal protection, but it remains to be seen how Labour will address this issue and reform the system.