A Tyneside MP has highlighting shocking statistics showing people in mental health crisis spend hours in North East A&Es, and how the North East Ambulance Service takes thousands of calls from those in crisis each year too.
Blaydon MP Liz Twist has hit out at the Government's failure to tackle the root causes of mental ill health, and said the system as it exists today does not work for patients - especially children and young people. Ms Twist, who also co-chairs the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on suicide and self-harm prevention, spoke out in parliament last week, and has further detailed her fears to ChronicleLive.
She spoke during a debate in the House of Commons which saw shadow mental health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan highlight "the scale of the mental health crisis facing the country" and how patients in mental health crisis took up "more than 5.4 million hours" in A&Es around England last year.
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Also during the debate Ms Twist - who has previously spoken movingly about her own experience of losing her husband to suicide - highlighted the impact regionally and locally, saying: "Just in the 2021-22 financial year, adults in mental health crisis spent more than 1,134 hours in A&E at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, while children in crisis spent 180 hours there.
"The North East Ambulance Service received 3,622 emergency 999 calls from people in mental health crisis. NHS Digital figures for 2022 showed that, in the North East and north Cumbria ICB alone, 31,345 children and 70,770 adults were on waiting lists, and 12,845 patients had treatments closed without even receiving an appointment."
That data has been compiled through Freedom of Information requests and using NHS digital figures by the Labour Party.
Ms Twist told ChronicleLive: "What we are doing is talking about what everyone knows is a crisis. If you break your arm you don't have to wait months for treatment, but for people with mental health issues - and especially those in crisis - there's a real problem.
"They do not see help, what they get is they are told to go to the back of the queue."
She spoke of how, as part of her work with the APPG, young people had told off falling through "gaps between services". She added: "Hearing young people talk about experiences of say, being too ill for talking therapies but waiting for CAMHS - and frankly, while they are waiting they are not getting better."
In parliament, Ms Twist cited research from the charity YoungMinds which showed 43% of people turned down by CAMHS (children's and adolescent mental health services) had experienced suicidal thoughts, psychosis or self-harm. The charity believes 26% had tried to take their own lives.
The MP said against a backdrop where public health spending has fallen dramatically since 2016-17, it was vital to take a broad approach. She said: "The drop in the public health funding is alarming. What I would have liked to have gone into further in the debate are the social determinants of health. It's people in the most deprived areas who feel the impact of this most."
Referencing how unstable work, relationship breakdown and poor housing are issues disproportionately felt in deprived areas - and the shocking fact that six times as many construction workers die by suicide than by falling from heights, she added: "All of these kind of situations really impact on people.
"This feeds into the wider conversation about the social determinants of health. For me, it's got to be about how we make sure people are getting the support they need."
"We need to do better for people with poor mental health. That's the key thing. For people at all stages of their journey we need to make sure that we are tackling the causes of mental ill health by taking a broader, public health approach and ensure we can get people the help they need when they need it.
"This is especially important for young people, where waiting a year can have a disproportionate impact on their lives. After 13 years of this Government, out mental health system is in a horrendous state."
This week, shadow minister Dr Allin-Khan spoke at the national conference of trade union UNISON and said a Labour government would “stop mental health policy from being placed in a silo” and “bring in long-term, whole government planning for improving mental health outcomes and mental health in all policies".
In response to the House of Commons mental health debate, health minister Maria Caulfield said: "All countries are facing challenges with rising cases of mental ill health and capacity issues, but we have made progress in the last 10 years.
"It was in 2016 that David Cameron first talked about changing the stigma on mental health and, as my right honourable friend the Member for Chelmsford put it so well, we want more people to come forward. The problem in the past was that people did not come forward, instead waiting until they became so acutely unwell that it was more difficult to support them."
In January, the Government announced a "rapid review" of mental health care, and highlighted that safety risks and failures in mental health settings in England would be considered as part of this.
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