WEST DORSET TO WESTMINSTER with MP Oliver Letwin

The National Health Service is, of course, constantly at the center of the nation’s attention. Quite rightly, people are always talking about things to do with hospitals, GPs and other aspects of the health service.

Nothing could be more important. But there is one part of the health care system that goes almost unnoticed except for those who use it – namely, mental health services.

There is a strange taboo which has made it seem almost tactless to talk about mental health at all, at least until quite recently. Perhaps this is because we are all, in the end, more frightened by mental illness than by any other kind of illness.

Or perhaps it’s because there is still some completely unjustified sense of embarrassment about admitting that you have or had problems with mental health, in a way that doesn’t generally happen when one has a problem with one’s physical health. In any event, whatever the reason, mental health services have been for a long time the poor relation in the NHS.

A lot has been done to counteract this in recent years – not least with the very large increase in cognitive behavioral therapy, which can be shown to produce really remarkable effects of large numbers of people who have relatively minor mental health problems, and which is more than able to earn its keep through the savings it makes in enabling people to continue working and living a normal life.

But I was struck, once again, this week when visiting a local recovery house for people who experience sudden crises, just how important care is for those suffering bouts of acute mental illness. The people involved in it are absolutely committed to their task.

Source: http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/10780701.Healthcare_is_not_just_about_body/

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