As chief executive of mental health charity
Mind, he says politicians are doing their bit to change attitudes.
“What has happened in parliament in the last 18 months has been really interesting,” he told Central Lobby.
“We had Gavin Barwell’s bill and that incredible debate this time last year when four MPs were very open about their own mental health experiences.
“That was unprecedented and that whole debate reverberated around the corridors of Westminster in a way we have not seen before.
“With it has come a growing level of political interest from all sides of the House.
“It is also mirroring what is going on in society - we are beginning to see more people in the public eye being more open about their own mental health.
“We also know the effect of that is to encourage other people to be more open.”
Gavin Barwell’s bill is now law.
The Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Act 2013 repeals legislative provisions that prevented people with mental health conditions from serving as Members of Parliament, members of the devolved legislatures, jurors, or company directors.
“What happens in the chamber of the House of Commons is a microcosm of what is happening both through
Mind and the Time to Change campaign, but also there is an increasing awareness and acceptance of mental health,” says Mr Farmer.
He says the Commons authorities’ decision to invest in more mental health support for MPs is “commendable”.
“In many ways it was quite a brave thing for the Parliamentary authorities.
“I work with MPs on a regular basis and there are unique pressures and strains about their work.
“I understand the complexity of the ‘employment’ situation of MPs but it does require the employer to think about their responsibilities.
“That is something we are starting to see in businesses across the country in different ways.”
Mind wants MPs to take an interest in some other, less positive aspects of mental health.
In recent years it has produced reports on the state of mental health crisis care - care for people experiencing a mental health emergency such as a psychotic episode, suicidal feelings or extreme anxiety.
Through FOI requests it found that four in ten trusts have staffing levels below the recommended benchmarks for crisis care.
“There were significant variations between trusts - the number of referrals to crisis teams ranged from 42 to 430 people per 10,000 of population,” says Mr Farmer.
“Only a third of people were getting access to crisis services within the recommended four hours – that’s the mental health equivalent of A&E.”
If two-thirds of A&E patients were not being seen within target, there would be a national outcry.
Mr Farmer says mental health in many ways remains a ‘Cinderella service’.
“Mental health accounts for 25% of the disease burden in this country but only 12% of the NHS budget,” he says.
“There is very good evince that suggests that 75% of the need is going untreated.
“We need to move towards a significant paradigm shift about how we approach mental health.
“There are some good and encouraging signs, but equally as we encourage people to be more open about their mental health, services that are available are not sufficient because they are calculated on a much lower level of assumed need.”
Changes to the NHS in England may see an increase in the “patchiness” of the service.
“In some places CCGs are embracing mental health as a priority and have a strong commitment to doing things in a better way,” says Mr Farmer.
“In other parts of the country it is very far down the priority list and commissioning contracts are being rolled over for a year or so. It depends on where you are.”
For Mind and Mr Farmer, the goal is “parity of esteem” between mental and physical health.
While attitudes are changing towards mental health, thanks in part to people such as Stephen Fry being more open about their mental health issues, Mind is this week drawing attention to dangerous practices that should be phased out.
The charity is calling on the government and NHS England to put an end to dangerous face down restraint of people with mental health problems in healthcare settings.
Data secured by the charity under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that more than 3,000 patients were restrained in a face down position in 2011-12, despite the increased risk of death from this kind of physical restraint.
There is huge variation in the use of more general restraint and face down restraints across England.
Half of all face down restraint incidents occurred in just two trusts: Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust and Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.
Yet four others including Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and West London Mental Health NHS Trust, report that they have put an end to using face down restraint altogether.
“This issue of restraint has been quite controversial for a while, particularly in the context of incidents outside of mental health care, such as the Winterbourne review and also the Francis report,” says Mr Farmer.
“It is really important that there is a focus on people receiving acute and crisis care with dignity and respect.
“The use of restraint is a really important indicator of the way people are being treated.”
There were at least 42,000 recorded incidents of all kinds of physical restraint during the 12 month period, resulting in at least 1,000 injuries to people with mental health problems.
Mind found huge variation between mental health trusts in the use of the physical restraint.
Mr Farmer says physical restraint "can be humiliating, dangerous and in some cases even life-threatening and the huge variation in its use indicates that some trusts are using it too quickly".
"Our research shows that some trusts have a shameful overreliance on physical restraint and use face down physical restraint too readily in their response to managing a crisis situation."
Mind is calling for national standards on the use of physical restraint and accredited training for frontline healthcare staff.
"Face down restraint has no place in modern healthcare."