The Most Worrying Aspect of I, Daniel Blake?

The Mental Health Crisis

Bryan Blears

This week at PMQs, Jeremy Corbyn challenged Theresa May over the Conservatives record on
mental health spending. He was referring to a report by The Kings Fund, who estimate that around 40
percent of mental health trusts have faced year-on-year budget cuts since 2011. Research conducted
by the BBC confirmed that between 2011 and 2015, mental health trust budgets were cut by 8.25
percent across the country, while at the same time, demand for mental health services has increased by
around 20 percent. This is putting great strain on A&E departments and the police, who are having to
deal with more cases of mental illness in place of properly trained psychiatric staff.
The figures are damning but even moreso are the real stories of people affected by the cuts. Take, for
example, the experience of Sascha, a 16-year-old girl who was kept in an adult psychiatric ward for
three months recently due to a lack of beds in Cornwall, surrounded by terminally ill patients and
people suffering from dementia. Or theres the story of a 26-year-old homeless woman detained
unwillingly by police in Exeter due to a lack of beds for two nights. She was a sufferer of fetal alcohol
spectrum disorder and had been sexually assaulted. In an extreme case in 2015, also in Exeter, a man
was kept in prison awaiting transfer for nine months due to a lack of mental health beds in the southwest of England. He had been diagnosed as needing immediate psychiatric care by the two doctors
who examined him shortly after his arrest.
For some patients there are no beds available anywhere across the country others have to travel long
distances to be admitted to hospital. The usage of section 136 powers which allow the police to
detain people under the Mental Health Act has increased by 50 percent in the past 10 years, meaning
that people who are mentally unwell are often detained in police cells at risk of further harm due to a
lack of beds available. A&E departments are also under pressure as they are often the only place
people experiencing a mental health crisis feel that they can go. The Care Quality Commission found
in 2015 that A&E departments are not fit to cope with people experiencing a mental health crisis and
that current responses are unsafe and unacceptable. This is deeply concerning considering that
according to NHS Improvement, people with a mental health condition are three times more likely to
present at A&E than the general population.
At the same time, researchers at Oxford and Liverpool Universities have established clear links
between the changes to out-of-work disability benefits under the Tories and an increase in mental
illness. They estimated that the fit-to-work tests highlighted in the new Ken Loach film I, Daniel
Blake, have resulted in 590 additional suicides and 279,000 cases of mental illness across the country.
These additional cases, while being completely unavoidable, have received no extra funding from the
Conservative government. In fact, the Tories have been doing the opposite - community mental health
was cut by 4.9 percent under David Camerons government and local authorities, also facing budget
cuts, allocate on average a mere 1 percent of their budgets to preventing mental illness. That is despite
mental health problems accounting for 23 percent of all disease in the UK and being responsible for
90 percent of suicides and suicide attempts.
The most worrying effects are on our children. One in three ChildLine counselling sessions were
about mental health related concerns in 2015 thats 92,891 cases, with 5,644 also involving abuse or
neglect. These arent psychiatric criminals, but are children crying out for help. Children experiencing
problems relating to mental health often have nowhere to turn and increasingly they are finding that

the mental health services which should support them are oversubscribed. Researched conducted by
the NSPCC found that 1 in 6 children referred to CAHMS services were turned away last year. Many
of the sufferers have been traumatised by sexual or physical abuse.
Sadly, much of the investment which could reduce the number of instances of mental illness is also
being reduced under the Tories. The Early Intervention Grant, for example, is set to be cut by 60
percent by 2020 under the governments existing plans it has already been cut by over 50 percent
since it was established in 2010. An independent report carried out by Graham Allen MP in 2011
argued that Early Intervention was low in cost, high in results ... [and] has significant implications
for levels of physical, emotional and mental health, individual achievement and violent crime. 763
Sure Start centres which were also aimed at giving people the best start in life have been closed since
2010. These cuts are taking place against a backdrop of increased numbers of cases of child abuse and
neglect.
Many will not live long enough to become Daniel Blakes due to the mental health problems they face
from an early age due to neglect or abuse. One in four young people experience suicidal thoughts in
the UK it is the single largest killer of men under 45 in the UK, and austerity has compounded the
problem, resulting in both increased numbers of cases, and reduced funding across the board to deal
with it. What is also clear is that it is societys most vulnerable who are most affected, with young
people, the homeless, BAME and LGBT groups disproportionately at risk of self-harm or suicide. For
many people struggling to cope with fit-to-work assessments or benefit sanctions, mental health
services are not fit for purpose. The worst off are increasingly being detained in police custody, or are
sadly taking their own lives, instead of being offered the medical treatment which they need.

Bryan Blears works for a mental health trust and is a member of the Labour Campaign for Mental
Health