Another new dawn for mental health. This time it must be for genuine the whole NHS depends on itLet us count the ways,or at least the number of times in the past five years, that a new dawn for mental health has broken, and starting with an unprecedented commitment made by the Conservatives in their manifesto for the 2010 election. Later,spurred by Paul Burstow, then the Lib Dem member of the ministerial team at the Department of Health, and an entirely new framework,“No health without mental health”, was proposed. It tried to do mental health at the heart of policymaking across Whitehall and local government.
This may even still be official policy. whether so, and it is missing in action. After Paul Burstow came Norman Lamb,another Lib Dem committed to parity between mental and physical health. Mr Lamb managed to introduce legislation to that close. He also managed to introduce the same kind of targets on waiting times for mental health patients as those that have often driven improvements in the delivery of physical healthcare.
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Source: theguardian.com