World Mental Health Day is celebrated annually on 10th October. This year’s theme is Making Mental Health and Wellbeing for All a Global Priority. While we acknowledge the mental health toll of the pandemic, we have needed parity of esteem, better mental health services and more support far longer. For too long, mental health and mental illness has been the poor cousin. While mental health problems account for 23% of the burden of disease in the UK, mental health services receive only 11% of the NHS budget. This shrinks to 0.7% when it comes to children and young people’s mental health services, totalling approximately 6.4% of the health budget overall. Likewise, mental health funding in the UK receives approximately 5.5% of the UK health research budget.
Under resourced and underfunded
Globally, mental health systems face inequality of resources – from funding to research and provision of services. Physical health conditions and services continue to be prioritised to the detriment of mental health services and research. The World Health Organization approximates that 50% of the global population live in a country with one psychiatrist per 200,000+ people. And upwards of 70% of mental health funding in middle-income countries is attributed to psychiatric hospitals. Despite the almost 1 billion people globally who experience a diagnosable mental illness, most people are undiagnosed and lack treatment.
Barriers to treatment
The reasons why effective care for mental illness and distress is lacking are multi-faceted – from the lack of available services and lack of capacity therein to the funding prioritised for other health services and the lack of affordable healthcare options. Additionally, within services, treatment options, such as medications and therapeutic interventions, may be limited, archaic or costly. Overarchingly, the impact of stigma and discrimination continues to play a role. Stigma around mental health and illness prevent people from accessing services even when they are available. However, services that are not truly inclusive can prevent people accessing support for fear of lack of understanding or even further discrimination.
Uniting for change
This World Mental Health Day our voices must join those of others all around the world to call for action. We must highlight the need for mental health and wellbeing to be a global priority. Every one of us deserves accessible, cost-effective, timely, person-centred, and recovery-based care. But change will only happen with commitment and investment from every level of society – from government and local authority to the voluntary, public, and private sectors; and from those of us who belong to cultural, religious, and political communities to each of us in our own homes.
