The general public, people of all ages with lived experience of mental health conditions and those who support people with mental ill-health are urged to respond to a 12-week call for evidence to inform a new 10-year mental health plan and a refreshed national suicide prevention plan seeking views on what can be improved within the current service, particularly in light of the pandemic which has led to record levels of people seeking treatment.
Around 1 in 5 adults in Britain experienced some form of depression in the first 3 months of 2021, over double pre-pandemic figures. Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we have committed to continue expanding and transforming mental health services and addressing the impacts of the pandemic.
Minister of State for Care and Mental Health, Gillian Keegan spoke to Asian Voice about encouraging responses to the government’s mental health call for evidence from groups who are currently underrepresented. So far, only 2% of respondents are Asian or British Asian.
Keegan told us that she is open to exploring and overcoming any kind of stigma and linguistic barriers to help the Asian community in seeking help for their mental health under this 10-year programme.
Mentioning that the inputs of the community will be instrumental in shaping the 10-year health strategy for the cross-government programme with NHS, the minister said, “We're really keen to hear more from the British Asian community, especially more from mothers in the British Asian community as well as young people, including fathers.”
“We want to make sure that we're fully representative of people who have had exposure to experiences with mental health during the pandemic. The plan aims to say that mental health is everybody's business. It's your employer's business. It's your school's business, a university's business. It's your family, business, your friend’s business and we're all here to support each other. So, hopefully, that's given us a little bit more impetus to open up that conversation, even more, to say, now's the time to recognise that any of us can suffer from our mental health, anyone can recover.”
Ms Keegan also agreed that this plan will potentially help more South Asian women to come forward and be heard, as well as believed that they can seek help and recover. She acknowledged that people suffering from cancer, long covid, and other ailments will also hugely benefit from the call for evidence. The call for evidence, which opens today (Tuesday 12 April 2022) and will close on 5 July.
