Mental health tsar Louis Appleby says services are better under Labour

Mental health services in England have seen a massive increase in funding, staffing and community treatment since 1999, according to a government progress report published today.

The analysis by mental health “tsar” Louis Appleby points out that funding has increased by over £1.5bn, there are over 700 new mental health teams and last year 100,000 people were treated at home rather than admitted to hospital as a result of over 340 crisis resolution teams.

Appleby says there are now 1,300 more consultant psychiatrists, 2,700 more clinical psychologists and 10,000 more mental health nurses since 1999, when the 10-year national service framework for mental health was launched. And there has been a 20-fold increase in the use of modern anti-psychotic drugs, the report states.

It says that although the World Health Organisation recently called mental health services in England the best in Europe it also suggested the country had a “culture of criticism that prevented it from being acknowledged”.

The report says future mental health priorities will be social inclusion, psychological therapies, services for ethnic minorities and the “controversial but unfairly criticised” Mental Health Bill.

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