How to really improve mental health

 “I want this to be a country where a young dad chatting at the school gates will feel as comfortable discussing anxiety, stress, depression, as the mum who is explaining she sprained her ankle.”

Nick Clegg to Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference, 2014.

It has – and this is a good thing – finally become fashionable for politicians to call for mental health services to be high on their agenda.    And the Liberal Democrats are making this a key plank of their election campaign, having committed to an additional £500m a year for mental health services.

Of course, any extra funding to the NHS is welcome.  But the devil, as so often, is in the detail:  how it is spent is key.

Green Party policy supports the concept that mental and physical health is equally important and often inter-related.  Our stance is holistic. It is hard to think of any Green Party policy that does not aim to improve the quality of life for everyone. 

For the Greens, mental health is promoted through a positive society with security of income and housing for all, with access to nature, based on equality of opportunity. It is not achieved with a stress-inducing programme of austerity, benefit sanctions and reduced public services, all of which the Liberal Democrats have gone along with over the past 4 years.

In a previous job I worked as a manager for a small mental health charity in Bristol. We provided self-help groups aimed at people experiencing anxiety and depression. However, since the service was open to anyone, we found that up to 50% of our attendees were actually suffering from mental health conditions which had formerly required secondary mental health care: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and personality disorders were common.

We had repeated episodes of people coming to our groups in great distress, sometimes deeply suicidal, often summarily discharged by services that they depended on. The trusting relationships they had - often painfully - built up with mental health staff were suddenly terminated. In many cases, the strain they were under was compounded by the threat to their incomes from disability assessments and tribunals.

We were sometimes worried that we wouldn't see some of these people again.

Many mental health conditions need sustained, often lifelong, care. The NHS, in contrast, is now geared towards turnover.

Target setting and the endless search for cost-effectiveness means that people who need on-going support to maintain even a basic level of wellbeing are screwing up the figures. The impetus is towards getting them off the books and turning attention to those who can (hopefully) be sorted with a quick fix.

Back in the office, we faced another problem. As a small charity, secure funding was becoming harder to find. The trustees were keen to consider NHS-commissioned work as an option.

At that time the so-called ‘talking therapies’ in Bristol were being re-commissioned under a new system (Any Qualified Provider), which supposedly offered opportunities to small voluntary organisations. There were plenty of loopholes to jump through to be eligible but the real obstacle was the price that was on offer. Unlike a traditional tendering process we did not put in a bid based on the costs of providing a service, but a fixed amount was on offer and we could apply to supply a service for that figure.

When I looked at the numbers it just didn’t add up. Ours was a low cost service but it looked as if we might not break even; in fact we could have ended up subsidising the NHS with our other income (from grants and fundraising).

The only service that would be able to be provided at this price would be extremely short-term and shallow. It would have to be run by a large organisation with significant economies of scale – with all that that implies   And, crucially, the long-term effectiveness of these therapies was not being properly evaluated:  results were measured at 3 months, and never again, and no-one was counting re-entry to the system.

In short, the NHS market, set up by Thatcher, extended significantly by Labour, and bound into by The Coalition’s Health and Social Care Act 2012 (which Clegg refuses to repeal), is not working in favour of UK citizens. Nowadays even the commissioning process itself is being put out for commission!

Genuine and sustainable mental health policy

Good general public policy will increase mental wellbeing but we recognise that there will always be people needing care, and a good mental health service is an integral part of a healthy society. The Greens will promote mental health at three levels.

The first will be making people’s lives more equitable, secure and less stressful through wide-ranging public policy.

The second will be to repeal the Health and Social Care Act and return the NHS to a non-profit, publically-run body, where medically trained people can deliver care in ways which benefit the people needing their services. The health service will be entirely in public ownership.

The third is to fund the service adequately. In direct contrast to the programme of austerity that is crippling this country - the current economic policy of all the other major parties - the Green Party will pay NHS staff adequately and provide them with the necessary resources to research, treat and care for all people with mental illness.

What the Greens want to see is not just a dad feeling ‘comfortable’ discussing his mental health problems, but a dad who has fewer anxieties and stresses in the first place and, if he needs them, is able to access similar services as the mum who has sprained her ankle.

Residents survey and canvassing opinion

Good to be out several times each week conducting our residents survey and canvassing opinion in Windmill Hill, Totterdown and Lower Knowle. Here's a collage of photos of some of the survey/canvass team taken on 10 Jan.

Voting Green is not just 'Nice' - it's Necessity

I've been thinking about the messages that we can put out on our campaign to elect a Green councillor for Windmill Hill Ward here in Bristol. Underneath the simplicity of slogans such as 'Better Public Transport' and 'Living Wage' there are some deeper and more critical issues which make me realise that voting Green is not just another option, or even simply a 'nice' option, which is often the way we are seen (and perhaps present ourselves).

Behind Caroline Lucas' smiling face, Natalie Bennett's tweed suits and even my own apparently innocuous campaign photograph, there are some hardcore radical politics which have come of age.

We are facing some deep crises in this world. One of the world's largest cities, Sao Paulo, is facing a disastrous water shortage due to drought and rising water use. In the Middle East and Africa we see terrible violence and conflict which relates at least in part to power struggles over key resources such as oil and gas. In the UK we are being repeatedly beaten with the stick of austerity measures in an attempt to dismantle public infrastructure and local democracy.

The perilous threats to the welfare of people here and across the globe cannot be remedied with 'politics as usual'. Voting for a party with a 'peg on your nose', for a party which has already failed you repeatedly in the past, a 'tactical' vote, is no longer sufficient. The economic systems of the last 300 years are worse than redundant - they will lead us into the final stages of environmental and social catastrophe.

We need radical reform of our institutions and of policy objectives. We need people to take the system into their own hands, to be assertive in taking power from those who are holding on to it for the benefit of a minority. I don't mean random looting and arson - those pointless actions of the angry and impotent which harm the wrong people and create fear, inviting a conservative backlash. I mean voting for policies which will support everyone - such as putting public transport provision back in the hands of those who use it (the public!) and finding ways to run an economy which does not suck the value we all create into profits for the few.

At the same time we need to ensure that individual creativity and freedom is preserved and that everyone has opportunities to thrive. These are the values of The Green Party. All our policies are to that end, and if we need to change them to fit or add more, that can be done. Ideas are welcomed and the internal  processes are democratic and friendly.

It's refreshing and feels good to be part of a party which is so nice. It feels even better to be campaigning for values which are vital for our future.

The Green Surge - a chance for real change in politics

Bristol Green Party celebrated its 500th member this month. The irony was that by the time the actual event occurred we were already at 565 members. Nationally, 1000 people joined the party over the last fortnight, many of them young people and students. And we are supposed to be living in a time of political apathy!

Here in Windmill Hill ward, we launched our residents' survey last weekend. The rain poured down and we only managed to survey five streets, but the response was phenomenal. Fifty surveys were completed and half of these said they would consider voting Green at the next election. Several offered to help out with the campaign!

What is causing this massive interest in The Green Party? There are a number of factors of course. The recent exclusion of The Greens from the TV debate has given us a huge amount of publicity and ignited public sympathy. But the Greens have been doing well all year, gaining a significant vote share at the May elections in Bristol, Liverpool, Solihull and Scotland, among other places.

My feeling is that we have become the only real alternative voice in UK politics. We have managed to convey that we are not purely about the environment, but that our policies are about supporting people too, in a sustainable and fair way. We are all born with equal rights to live on this planet, but inequality is increasing and wealth is being ever more concentrated in the hands of a few. Changing this is at the heart of the Green movement as much as looking after the planet we live on.

Sustainable Living for Windmill Hill

I have lived in Bristol for four years, half of that time in Lower Totterdown and now around the corner in Lower Knowle. I love Bristol. I am excited every day about living here.

I am interested in your lives. I care about your children or grandchildren being able to get to school safely. I care about the quality of air that you breathe. I care that you have access to health facilities if you need them. Most of all, I care that these things can go on being provided for the whole of your lives– it is called sustainable living.

Please get in touch if you have any comments or questions or would like to help. Email me at deb.joffe@bristolgreenparty.org.uk

We are now asking residents to complete a short survey about the issues which matter to them most. We are looking for people to help deliver the survey – the more of us who help, the more residents we can ask.

If you can help please contact me or Barney on windmillhill@bristolgreenparty.org.uk

To complete the survey online please click this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3G576FC