Election 2024: lacklustre promises mean mental health loses regardless of who wins the vote

According to many experts, the UK is experiencing a mental health crisis.

In England alone, an estimated 1.2 million people are awaiting mental health help. Around 270,000 of those waiting are children.

The burden of poor mental health is escalating rapidly – costing the UK economy almost £120 billion yearly, mainly due to lost productivity. This amounts to 5% of the UK’s GDP.

There’s a clear need to address mental health care in the UK. While most parties have outlined plans in their manifesto to address the crisis, most of these measures will still fall short – regardless who wins.

The Conservatives

The Conservative party manifesto advocates a two-pronged approach.

First, like most of the parties, they pledge additional funding for support and treatment – mainly for children and young people. This makes sense as early intervention might prevent some mental health problems from getting worse.

They also plan to expand their recent early support hub scheme for people aged 11-25 to every community by 2030. These hubs provide young people with therapy and advice on a numerous issues. However, nothing in their plans suggests they’ll help young people negotiate the socioeconomic circumstances that often trigger mental health problems.

The second aspect of the Conservatives’ mental health plans is more problematic. They plan to make significant changes to who can qualify for benefits and personal independence payments (PIP). The party plan to roll-out more “objective” PIP assessments to disqualify people with “moderate mental health issues” who could still be eligible to work and cut costs.

This plan stigmatises mentally ill people and ignores how workplace issues and financial insecurity can sometimes trigger or exacerbate mental illness. Rather than giving people time to heal, the policy may instead worsen symptoms for those struggling – which may ultimately lower productivity in the future.

Labour

The Labour manifesto also focuses on child and youth mental health.

They will create “young futures hubs”. While primarily aimed at reducing knife crime, these hubs will also offer drop-in mental health services. Labour promises specialist mental health services in every school, and plans to recruit 8,500 new NHS mental health staff to reduce waiting times.

Labour stresses its approach will be preventative – and that mental illness must be treated on par with physical illness. However, Labour doesn’t explain how it aims to prevent mental illness.

The party pledges to update the Mental Health Act to reduce the discrimination Black people experience in mental health services.

Black people are five times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act than white people. Since the act determines who can be sectioned and treated without consent, updating it would ensure Black patients have greater autonomy, choice and support when it comes to their care.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrat party’s mental health plans are probably the most comprehensive of all the parties – though that’s perhaps not saying much.

The party plans to create young people’s mental health hubs and hire additional mental health professionals in schools. The Lib Dems also want to update the Mental Health Act, and will introduce a mental health commissioner to represent patients at the legislative level.

The Lib Dems promise to help police better deal with mental health crises. They’d introduce a one-hour target for handing people in crisis over to mental health services, provide more mental health training for police and ensure a mental health professional is available in every police control room.

They acknowledge the need to improve existing psychiatric hospitals where there’s been evidence of abuse. They want to ensure patients are referred to treatment facilities close to their homes.

The Lib Dem manifesto hints at introducing preventive mental health approaches. They’ll provide mental health checks at key stages of life, which could result in early diagnosis of problems. They acknowledge the relationship between debt and mental illness. However, the manifesto largely lacks a clear, overarching prevention strategy.

The Greens

The mental health focus of the Green party manifesto is on addressing the needs of underrepresented groups.

For instance, the Greens will place counsellors in every school and train more from underrepresented backgrounds. This could encourage more vulnerable children to seek out help. They’ll provide additional support to neurodivergent children, which could prevent future problems from developing. They pledge to increase funding for mental health services to ensure people can access therapy within 28 days.

Surprisingly, the Greens don’t mention anything about the relationship between mental health and the environment – such as the wellbeing benefits of spending time outdoors. This missed opportunity highlights how preventive mental health care simply isn’t on the political radar for most parties.

Plaid Cymru, SNP and Reform

The Plaid Cymru manifesto briefly touches on mental health – stating they support reforming the Mental Health Act. They want to introduce changes so neurodivergent children and young people don’t wait so long for support.

The SNP manifesto doesn’t address mental health directly, but health is already a devolved power. As such, mental health will probably be addressed more pointedly during the next Holyrood election.

The Reform UK manifesto barely discusses mental health. It states briefly that employment is “critical” to improving mental health, but doesn’t acknowledge the nuances related to work and mental health – such as the detriment of precarious or meaningless work on wellbeing. Reform doesn’t outline how it will ensure people with mental health problems can access work.

Reform states that social media can cause a variety of mental health problems in children and pledge to launch an inquiry into these harms. Research indicates, however, that the relationship between social media and mental health is complex and multi-faceted.

Overall message

All manifestos lack the kind of preventive mental health strategy that will stem the rising tide of mental illness. Despite extensive evidence illustrating how socioeconomic problems, lack of access to nature and diet all impact upon our mental health, none of the manifestos directly address these issues.

Regardless of who wins, most of these promises will do little to solve the mental health crisis.

Matthew Smith is affiliated with the Scottish Green Party.