Suicides soar in the UK as evil government slashes help and support

[SilverbladeTE]

http://www.thecanary.co/2016/01/28/suicides-soar-22-mental-health-service-cuts-hit-home/

Suicides soar by 22% as mental health service cuts hit home


Shocking stats from England’s mental health trusts reveal a sharp rise in sudden deaths and suicides over a two-year period, following experts’ dire warnings that the Conservatives’ relentless cuts to mental health services would be bad for patient safety.
The figures were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Liberal Democrats – MP Norman Lamb has savaged the government for their lack of commitment to mental health equality, saying that the underfunding of mental healthcare “amounts to discrimination”.

What did these stats say?
From 2012 to 2013 there has been a 31% increase in the number of ‘serious incidents’ – events involving severe injury or death – reported from hospital trusts in England. During the years 2012 and 2013, there were just over 6,000 reported incidents – rising to 8,139 during 2014-2015. Worryingly, there has been a 22% increase in the number of suicides and a 20% increase in sudden deaths.

More reporting or more cuts?
NHS England declined to comment directly on the figures. A spokesperson even tried to suggest that the recent figures are due to an increase in reporting:
Reporting of incidents is intentionally up right across the NHS, including mental health, as part of our national effort to encourage transparency and a culture of learning.
This may be the true to some extent, but the cuts to mental health services over recent years means that there is a significant reduction in the amount of support those with mental health issues will be able to receive. Last year Chief Executive for Rethink Mental Illness Mark Winstanley expressed his concerns about the lack of community mental health services, stating they were “badly funded and overstretched”. More people were seeking help from Accident and Emergency (A&E) and there has been a drop (since 2010) by 8% in the number of beds for those suffering mental health illnesses.

He goes on to say:
For too many people with mental illness, going to A&E is the only way they can get care if they’re going through a crisis. In many parts of the country there are no suitable crisis services available, full stop.
I was told off the record by one trust chief executive that the only way to get a bed in their [area] was to be sectioned. We’re concerned that people are being left in terrible conditions either alone or with family and friends trying to cope with that.

Norman Lamb, MP for the Liberal Democrats commented on the serious incidents and reiterates the issues with funding:
On the face of it, they show a dramatic rise in unexpected deaths and suicides – at a time when real terms funding provided by commissioning groups has gone down.
With the despicable treatment of those being assessed by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and the massive impact the Work Capability Assessment(WCA) can have on mental health, we have already seen a snapshot into how the government’s own initiatives are resulting in increasing demands made on mental health services. This is made worse by the lack of funding; which means ultimately patients are suffering, with more people being less satisfied with the care they receive.

More deaths may be uncovered
Last year an independent review of deaths from April 2011 to March 2015 found that despite there being 722 unexpected deaths at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust only 272 deaths were investigated. The deaths were of people with learning disabilities and mental health issues. A further investigation (on data since 2011) from The Guardian revealed that out of 45 NHS trusts, 30 reported a total of 276 unexpected deaths with only 36% investigated. This suggests that these findings may be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of discovering the true impact of austerity on mental heath services.

Mental health issues are still highly stigmatised and the continuous cuts to the sector are arguably ruining patient care. What’s more, the government’s creation of systems like the WCA that can actually cause people to develop mental health issues means that this problem will only increase in future.

and yes, the British government Is "evil", it's obscene that the Front bench of both labour and tory from last 30 odd years or so, and especially the current Tory Cabinet, aren't in jail or hanged!

 

[Marco]

Hey credit where credit is due. Thanks to the "hard work of some Liberal Democrat MPs."

“Starting from early 2016, the government will provide online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to 40,000 Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants and individuals being supported by Fit for Work. From summer 2015, the government will also begin to co-locate Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) therapists in over 350 Jobcentres, to provide integrated employment and mental health support to claimants with common mental health conditions.”

http://www.theworkfoundation.com/blog/2481/Betting-the-budget-on-mental-health

http://www.libdems.org.uk/mental_health

On line CBT for ESA and JSA claimants! Makes ya proud to be a liberal.

 

[Antares in NYC]

“Starting from early 2016, the government will provide online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to 40,000 Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants and individuals being supported by Fit for Work. From summer 2015, the government will also begin to co-locate Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) therapists in over 350 Jobcentres, to provide integrated employment and mental health support to claimants with common mental health conditions.”

That is downright Orwellian.

 

[chipmunk1]

“Starting from early 2016, the government will provide online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to 40,000 Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants and individuals being supported by Fit for Work. From summer 2015, the government will also begin to co-locate Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) therapists in over 350 Jobcentres, to provide integrated employment and mental health support to claimants with common mental health conditions

improving access probably means sending them a link to a CBT brainwashing app.

Why do they even bother with this? Just declare them a moral failure and the problem is solved.

 

[jimells]

Every year I become a little more willing to believe that suicide is a deliberate government policy for dealing with Useless Eaters. Certainly in the US if a person threatens to kill theirself, the cops are more than willing to finish the job.

Recently there has been a number of media stories warning about the millions of jobs soon to be displaced by more automation. Those stories don't tell us how Our Dear Leaders plan to deal with all those unneeded and unwanted workers.

 

[alex3619]

When is bad policy resulting in mass death counted as genocide?

 

[jimells]

When is bad policy resulting in mass death counted as genocide?

It depends on who is doing the counting. When one of Uncle Sam's vassals is doing the killing (like Saudi Arabia in Yemen) it is always "unavoidable collateral damage". When mass murder is committed by a U.S. enemy du jour, they are, of course, "The New Hitler". History is always written by the victor, by definition, since the losers aren't around any more.

 

[Jeckylberry]

But.... CBT. One hit panacea. Government sets up access to it then it's not their fault you don't get better. Who needs welfare? We've got CBT! If everyone keeps believing it's all we need...

 

[SilverbladeTE]

When is bad policy resulting in mass death counted as genocide?

as Jimells notes...and wee lesson from history:

the vast majority of Stalin's victims did not die by execution, gulag, torture etc...they starved to death/died from diseases arising from starvation.
Largely this was deliberate policy, it was genocide (to break any dissent especially in the Ukraine), and also partially it was down to Stalin's egotism putting Lysenko (a "Wessely" of botany) in charge of agriculture/science, plus the loony Soviet's "system" making a complete shambles of organizing food production and distribution.

also a great many died from all kinds of accidents and disasters as civil servants/engineers/officials who warned of problems etc got "gulaged" or neckshot or exiled for upsetting Stalin and the Party bosses, leaving jackasses in charge of things, resulting in screw ups at an unprecedented scale.
There's no official figures/records just from what I've read, serious accidents in factories, bridge collapses etc became almost commonplace.

Which is roughly what is happening across the English speaking Western nations as fascist/corporate jack assess took power in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia.
Orwell assumed "1984" would be a Stalinist nightmare...in reality the real danger is from the opposite side of the political coin as wealth = power = ability to manipulate society unscrupulously.
There's no need of "Room 101", when fear of losing your pension/mortgage keeps most peons in line!

All kinds of systems for keeping society at an "even" moderate keel are or have been wrecked.
Allowing jackasses to run things they haven't the ability for (Ian Duncan Smith!), reducing safety (privatizing services at a hydrogen bomb store...OMFG!) etc

So, the UK's "S.O.P." of denying a problem when folk are harmed, has spiralled up to huge proportions, it's become a literal "industry".
They have actively prevented a treatment for our illness, and GWS, and many others, that's genocide both in terms of numbers and exterminating an entire "class" of people.
not death by gas or bullet, but by deliberate neglect, deliberate prevention of research treatment or cure
by withdrawing/reducing welfare disabled people need to live on
etc

the language and attitude of the UK government is that of abusive fascist thugs.
Normal differences of opinion on politics, economics etc are one thing and certainly not worth fighting over.
This is different though, this is life threatening.

it's the old story of the frog in the cooking pot...
if you raise the temperature slowly, the frog won't realize it's cooking until too late!

 

[jimells]

the vast majority of Stalin's victims did not die by execution, gulag, torture etc...they starved to death/died from diseases arising from starvation.

The leaders in "Red" China were similarly incompetent. Mao decided they could increase agricultural yields by killing all birds near grain fields because they might eat some of it. So the peasants expended huge efforts to kill millions of birds. This resulted in an explosion in the population of the insects that were no longer being eaten by birds, so the end result was yet another famine and lots of dead Chinese peasants.

Humans have been organizing themselves (by force, of course) into rigid hierarchical empires for thousands of years, and they always end in collapse and chaos. Is this really the best we can do?

 

[Cheshire]

“Starting from early 2016, the government will provide online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to 40,000 Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants and individuals being supported by Fit for Work. From summer 2015, the government will also begin to co-locate Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) therapists in over 350 Jobcentres, to provide integrated employment and mental health support to claimants with common mental health conditions.”

A solution for unemployment of CBT therapists?

 

[SilverbladeTE]

The leaders in "Red" China were similarly incompetent. Mao decided they could increase agricultural yields by killing all birds near grain fields because they might eat some of it. So the peasants expended huge efforts to kill millions of birds. This resulted in an explosion in the population of the insects that were no longer being eaten by birds, so the end result was yet another famine and lots of dead Chinese peasants.

Humans have been organizing themselves (by force, of course) into rigid hierarchical empires for thousands of years, and they always end in collapse and chaos. Is this really the best we can do?

Despite yearning for a benign Western socialism, I know that or any other system we'd make would degenerate due to Human nature
only answer I've heard of that sounds practical and humane is "democracy by lottery"
pick folk at random, no xenophobes criminals etc, 1 term only

thing is by creating "hierarchies" we ALWAYs create corruption, entrenchment, elites...that destroy everything in the end.
so we have ot get rid of the idea of perpetual social elevation nd power
just pick folk at random, breaking entrenchment
gives very different and REAL world views, not some jackass who thinks he should rule the world as he was born with a silver spoon up his ass
etc

 

[Gingergrrl]

Until lions have historians, history will always be the hunter's.

 

[Sean]

Every year I become a little more willing to believe that suicide is a deliberate government policy for dealing with Useless Eaters. Certainly in the US if a person threatens to kill theirself, the cops are more than willing to finish the job.

Recently there has been a number of media stories warning about the millions of jobs soon to be displaced by more automation. Those stories don't tell us how Our Dear Leaders plan to deal with all those unneeded and unwanted workers.

It's a cull. They know full well what the consequences are of these policies.

They can't just line us up and shoot us any more, so they starve, impoverish, humiliate, and drive us to suicide. All done with their hands on their hearts, shedding crocodile tears, and blathering on about strivers versus skivers.

But same end result.