Tony Blair says we need a national conversation about MH as its costing too much

[B0xes]

Tony Blair said recently on Jimmy's Jobs of the Future Podcast (clip available on youtube) that we need to have a national conversation about mental health. Why are we spending so much on it. Why are people self diagnosing. He believes people are being encouraged to view everyday challenges we all face as mental health issues.

Is he being unreasonable? In one sense, I'm inclined to agree to an extent, in the other, I believe he led the charge for so many of the social changes that have made us less resilient and many of these issues are due to individualism which led to atomisation and loneliness and being encouraged to see the market as the entity that fulfills our needs rather than strong families and robust social networks.

YABU - Blair can do one.

YANBU - He might have a point

@Gfre654 and @feellikeanalien if your DC with EHCPs need therapies, the therapies should be in F. That way you are not limited to the therapies the NHS will offer. The sessions can also be longer and more frequent than typically offered on the NHS. Nor do you have to sit on the normal waiting lists. You may have to appeal the EHCP to get the therapies detailed, specified and quantified in F, but this is often still quicker than sitting on NHS waiting lists.

He’s right when he says some people are self diagnosing as having MH issues when it’s just a case of some not being able to cope with every day challenges. Some have social anxiety, don’t like mixing at work, don’t like speaking on the phone, feel too pressured at work etc. These situations don’t equal mental health issues. They’re just things that might be difficult to some, but you just have to get on with it. A lot of kids coming through to adulthood atm are going to be like this, because they’re cushioned so much from situations. For example children not being invited to parties provokes, especially on MN, huge overcreaction and angst, when really it should just be accepted as one of life’s disappointments. Parents’ reactions project onto their children, causing them worry and anxiety as they approach adulthood.

My MH and ND issues affect me greatly. Yet you also see fit to blame me and others for the financial shit storm the country is in. Because that is how your comment comes across.

Maybe we should set up little cafe on cliff tops, where people like me could have a nice meal and drink, then get thrown off the cliff edge to save the taxpayers money.

Thankyou that’s helpful. It’s a bit vague in the F bit and was a battle due ti almost being impossible for the case handler to get hold of the health department for the last review. So can you get therapies detailed mid review cycle?

I think I understand what PP is saying. I know someone who has recently been been obtaining Valium illegally, and her source has been cut off, so she has to get off it before her stocks run out. She said to me that next time she craves Valium, she would call an ambulance to "get help." Sure enough, a few days later, she called me (sounding chirpy and calm) from an ambulance and asked why I wasn't proud of her for seeking help. The next day, she called me spitting feathers to say she's been discharged from hospital after they confiscated all her Valium and told her that there's nothing they can do, she will just have to go through the withdrawals, which I what I said to begin with.

That was an ambulance that came out for no reason, a bed she took up overnight for no reason and a waste of the time of medical professionals.

This means that someone like your poor daughter who is in genuine crisis and needs help is waiting longer.

Bullshit! I read a lot of threads and most posters are diagnosed. Those that are self diagnosed have nothing but my sympathy as it’s not their fault wait lists are years.

Re
the voting on here, many will vote a conversation is needed due to thinking we should be sorting out our dire MH services and looking at better support and access to treatment .

What about going to the start and asking why there is so much mental ill health?

How much if it is being created in particular by poverty?

How about making diagnosed work related mental health issues reportable to the HSE so employers will be held to account?

No, PP basically said A&E is not the place for people in MH crisis, and they should not be there.
Yes, it is not great, but there is no where else. They still haven't replied to me asking where we should go.

many of these issues are due to individualism which led to atomisation and loneliness and being encouraged to see the market as the entity that fulfills our needs rather than strong families and robust social networks.

Well said, I agree this is a big issue

I got the impression they meant people with MH problems who are not in crisis in A & E, but I may be wrong.

I do think that if the person I mentioned was getting proper MH support on an ongoing basis, it wouldn't have happened.

And to be fair i know many parents with undoubted privilege who kowtow to their teen children's every "anxiety" and "stress". These are very intelligent people, with professional jobs and good enough incomes to send multiple children to private school which has excellent pastoral support for their pupils.
their teens are savvy enough to realise that crying to mummy/matron that they are anxious about the next lesson (a subject they don't like) means they get to sit in the pastoral suite on Instagram for the next two hours avoiding the biology test they haven't revised for.
these are kids that have everything they want, have never experienced a moment's deprivation, have very involved stable families that support them in every way, and are excused and pacified at every opportunity. Yet still apparently have mental health problems 🤷‍♀️. It's not like they have drug addict parents and have grown up in care where one might expect they would be left with scars from what's happened.

There are 2 problems people don't realise anxiety and anxiety disorder are 2 different things and social media if you've ever spent anytime on tiktok it's clip after clip of people claiming to be diagnosed with either mental illness or neurodiversity and listing pretty normal average things as symptoms and then 100s of people in the comments saying I do that, that sounds like me.
I'm diagnosed with bipolar disorder, eupd anxiety disorder, panic disorder and have had on and off agoraphobia for years where I can't leave the house for months/years at a time. I'm heavily medicated, been in and out of physchiatric units, lost temporary custody of my children, self harm and made multiple suicide attempts. When my mh is bad It's literally debilitating I can't do anything so I really struggle with people claiming there struggling with mental illness and can't work but still manage to go out and about and on holiday and nights out etc when I'm ill I can't even brush my teeth.

But that isn’t what the OP was asking people to vote on. Tony Blair hasn’t (to my knowledge) said anything about sorting out our dire MH services. He’s saying MH issues are over diagnosed and costing the country too much.

I agree about parenting. It seems to have gone mad, encouraged of course by the internet.

The definition of bullying has expanded to ludicrous levels. Being “left out” is not bullying. My jaw dropped when a school mum was telling me she had “been down to the school” (secondary school!) because a group of girls had left her dd out of a shopping trip and it was “bullying”. I simply can’t imagine this back in my day. Parents didn’t go near the school.

Another instance that springs to mind is the instruction for ds’s university interview that parents were not allowed in the waiting room and certainly not in the actual interview and indeed I remember on MN a mother asking what accommodation would be provided for her and her dd…

It seems that a generation of complete ninnies has been raised.

It was all of the above that taught me how to be resilient from childhood, as it goes. I'd love to be a delicate flower and gnash my teeth and wail more, but, you know, I have to earn a living to pay bills and raise kids so I just crack on.....

To be fair, people that are not in a physical health crisis should not be there either. But when you have to battle with half your town at 8am for a GP appointment, then 2 weeks to see anyone, I can see why people turn up to A&E.

Years ago, I was in the reception of my local MH outpatients department, and an older gent went up to reception in a terrible state. He was visibly anxious and crying. He told the receptionist he was feeling suicidal, and begged to see someone, When he revealed he was not under MH services, they told him that they could not see him, and told him to see his GP.

I have CPTSD with agoraphobia, depression and OCD. I was lucky enough sort of, to see an MDT through CMHT which involved occupational therapy, psychology, psychiatry and a CPN. Have had my meds optimised, therapy for seven months and discharged. At the time of referral I was classed as a high intensity NHS user, known to A&E, had been admitted several times for safety, on daily diazepam for two years and was possibly going into supported living.

I ended up doing DBT, CBT and trauma focused work.

One year on I live totally independently, work full time in a professional job and mostly manage my own needs. I have a crisis plan, but I have only needed to read it twice. I feel 1000 times better for working - it gives me a reason to get up in the morning and I’m out of my own head. I’ve been able to stop self harming and most of my compulsions are reduced.

My CMHT said very rarely do they ever get to discharge anyone, let alone discharge them well - both my psychologist and CPN were hugging me the last time I saw them.

It helps that I have a strong team around me (family and friends) and got a huge amount of support but working genuinely does help. It makes a huge, huge difference to my life.

Many mental health issues start at school.
They start because on top of any home issues as well our children are being locked out of education by ignorance

That is an ignorance of what special needs in education are.
Our system cannot accommodate even smaller tweaks at all, setting off low self esteem issues particularly around reading.

Once someone has low self esteem it sparks off many other issues. Can we expect perfect behaviour from any child who can't engage properly with a lesson because they can't read and we can't help them?

People with low self esteem don't value themselves, they are vulnerable to abuse, drugs and many other issues.

Vague and woolly wording in F means it isn’t worth the paper it is written on. It isn’t enforceable.

Therapies should be in F. That is the special educational provision section. Then ultimately it is the LA who is responsible, not the ICB.

You can request an early review in order to try to pursue amendments now. Unfortunately, the LA doesn’t have to agree. If they don’t agree to hold an early review, there isn’t the right of appeal. You would have to wait for the AR or request a reassessment of needs.

Yes, i ve seen this too.

My mum, a nurse, would say to me when i was down in the dumps over X or Y "Pull yourself together and don't give in to the voice thats telling you to give up"

Of course she'd offer sympathy and understanding too BUT only if the situation merited it.

Yes in some cases, it does come from parents being too precious over their children.

I also think inconsistent parenting doesn't help either.

Same. Don’t have time to sit and think am I anxious, do I want to do this, who is going to get me out of this, Got responsibilities so on I crack.

I also think there is a HUGE difference between mental health, and mentally ill. Mental health is your mild to moderate - mental illness is a whole different kettle of fish. I work in specialised psychiatry (seriously), the patients I care for are 3000 worlds away from anything I ever experienced - e.g. fully convinced that you are the devil incarnate and that they are the second coming of Christ.

A lot of what’s happening now is I think the mistakes of the past coming to fruition - a lot of abuse, poverty, trauma and zero scaffolding (I have had numerous patients in their 50s and 60s wholly unable to read, write their own name, some with 40 years in care and no belongings other than a Tesco carrier bag of clothes) - but then I’m not sure that we are going to get any better out social media etc, I think we’re just going to walk into different problems altogether.

Sorry I think it’s G that’s vague. Wouldn’t therapies be in G not F. Her list of educational provision is detailed. It’s the health stuff that is more vague.

@becomecomfortablynumb look at my post just a couple before yours.

It's an absolute disgrace and easy to fix with flexible reading schemes!

Lucky you that you can do that. I can too after a difficult childhood. My dc have more complex disabilities and aren’t able to do that