Together’s Manifesto for mental health

Mental health affects everyone. One in four of us will experience a mental-health problem during our lifetime; and almost everyone knows someone – a friend, colleague, or family member – who has experienced mental distress.

Yet mental health remains low on the list of political priorities, and people with mental-health problems are often misunderstood, feared or ignored.

This must change – we need better mental-health services and better public understanding, and we need to make sure that people who have mental-health problems are fully integrated into society.

Here are five key areas where Together wants to see action from the next government.

Put the views of people who access mental-health services at the heart of service provision and policy-making

• recognise that different kinds of treatment are appropriate for different people, even people with the same diagnosis, and give service-users real choice
• make sure that mental-health service-users are fully consulted on and involved in the policy-making and implementation process at local and national levels
• put service improvement and increased safeguards for patients at the heart of any mental-health law reform.

Work to increase public understanding and tackle stigma

• invest in comprehensive national and local anti-stigma campaigns
• make sure that their rhetoric about people with mental-health problems is not inflammatory or stigmatising, intentionally or otherwise
• refuse to allow public fears or media misunderstandings of mental illness to drive policy.

Support people who have experienced mental distress to be fully integrated into society

• make sure that people with mental-health problems are protected by the Disability Discrimination Act in the same way that people with physical disabilities are
• ensure that the benefits system encourages people who want to return to paid employment to do so, while offering proper support to those who cannot work
• educate people with mental-health problems so that they understand what benefits they are entitled to and what help the benefit system can give them to return to work.

Recognise and support unpaid carers

• recognise that unpaid carers are an integral part of healthcare and the mental-health system, and treat them as ‘partners in care’
• invest in supporting carers properly through more training and respite care
• improve information sharing between clinicians, patients and carers, so that carers can be as well informed as possible about the people they support.

Prioritise mental health in the criminal justice system

• encourage better joint working between mental-health and criminal-justice agencies, so that offenders with mental-health needs can be diverted into the most appropriate services, whether custody- or community-based
• ensure that, wherever appropriate, community-based punishment alternatives are be considered for mentally-disordered offenders
• invest in mental-health training for the police and magistrates.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL MANIFESTO FOR MENTAL HEALTH