Mental health problems affect a large number of people in the UK every day. Over a quarter of all people living in the UK will experience some sort of mental health problem during their life, and this means that these types of health condition are nearly as common as more well-known illnesses, such as heart disease and cancer.
Many people, however, do not know much about how mental illness is treated and how the budgets for improving the wellness and wellbeing of people with these types of disorders are allocated.
For the millions of sufferers every year, their first port of call should be to contact their GP, who will then be able to refer them on to the appropriate type of specialist, depending on the type and severity of their condition. Many of these will only require a simple, primary type of care, but some will have to be referred on to secondary care for more in-depth types of treatment. Acute care is the third stage of the process, and refers to people whose conditions are serious enough to warrant a hospital admission. Very few people fall into this category.
Funding for these types of services is based on an individual assessment of the needs for each county, rather than being an equal spend across the board. This is often done by talking to the clinicians and patients or residents involved in the services and working out what the level of need actually is. There are also national guidelines and policies to take into consideration when making a final decision.
Other services may be provided on a lower level, to help mental health problems before they escalate, such as having a mental health worker at each GP practice (a trial of which saw referrals for further treatment drop by 80 percent in one county).
There are also workers positioned in A&E to catch any mental health-related admissions and try to prevent the need for further treatment at a later date by getting them the appropriate help and services they require.
Practitioners also report that the recent recession has prompted an increase in mental health problems, as the stress associated with losing a home or business, or a resulting marriage breakdown, can cause a variety of mental health problems.
Comments are closed.