🧵It's perfectly valid to criticise a government that opts for a #mentalhealth ambassador over a proportional response to need in its funding of services. It's not to say an ambassador is bad or can't do good work, but it's no substitute for investment to actually meet need.
For some context, c10% of department for health budget (pre-COVID) is mental health, but mental health is 26% of the economic "disease burden". We see more money going into services than before, but nowhere near enough to meet demand never mind catch up with historic harms
Encouraging people to seek help is great if the services can be there to meet their needs. Currently, they aren't & we have to be honest about that. That isn't "discouraging people" or "being negative" - people prefer honesty.
This is not a matter of opinion - the evidence is well-documented. We should no longer tolerate comments like "we are putting more than ever before into mental health" because they are meaningless without context. An ambassador is diluted without systems to back-up help-seeking.
So people can rightly feel very upset about the choice to create an ambassador which is not met with choices to fund services in any reasonably proportional way. This is rooted in historic injustice and discrimination against mental health
Where we see need in physical health, the services are often provided more readily. The evidence is generated through more research than in mental health. Yes, there are other conditions which are lobbied for but not whole domains of health.
So we can avoid getting into personal attacks, for sure, but we have to listen to the fact that raising awareness is good and necessary, but so is funding and providing good quality, accessible services.
Both can be true, but one is being neglected.
Both can be true, but one is being neglected.
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