Physical health still getting 10 times as much attention as mental health - UKCP research shows
Mental health is still the poor relation to physical health as far as parliament is concerned.
New research by the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) shows that despite passing a law last year giving mental and physical health equal importance, mental health issues are rarely raised in parliament.
An analysis of oral health questions by MPs since March 2012 shows that:
- Of 584 questions put to health ministers, only 18 focused on mental health conditions (just 3% of the total)
- Of 187 questions about specific health conditions, 169 were about physical health and 18 were on mental health (90% on physical health, 10% on mental health)
- Only 24 questions acknowledged the cross-over between our physical and mental wellbeing (4% of total questions)
David Pink, chief executive of UKCP, said:
"There are a few MPs that have gone out of their way to raise the profile of mental health in this country. We must praise and encourage the work of people like Paul Burstow, Jack Straw, Charles Walker and others. But this research reveals that they remain a small minority.
"Our emotional and psychological wellbeing is too important to remain on the sidelines. It touches every family in the country and it needs to become everybody's business, inside parliament and out."
Paul Burstow MP, former government minister for mental health, writing exclusively in UKCP's summer edition of The Psychotherapist, said:
"The interdependence of mental and physical health should mean that we are pushing on an open door.
"But somehow the NHS default remains stubbornly biased towards physical health.
"It is a terrible false economy at the expense of people's lives - as well as the public purse."
