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Half a billion for 'talking therapies'?

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
It seems that Mr Jeremy Hunt, the UK health minister, has announced a further £1.3B for mental health staff. People are already saying the figures do not add up but it looks as if half of this is going on psychotherapist salaries for 'talking therapies'. See https://www.theguardian.com/society...xed-response-to-13bn-plan-for-better-services

I think this indicates the scale of the vested interest in psychotherapy that lies behind PACE. OK, talking therapy might be useful for psychiatric illnesses like depression, but I am about as sceptical about use of therapists there as I am for ME in fact. The problem is actually lack of medical and nursing staff.
 
Coverage on this from the BBC
Thousands more mental health workers are to be recruited by the NHS in England, the health secretary has said.

Jeremy Hunt said it was time to end the "historic imbalance" between mental and physical health services.

The aim is to recruit enough nurses, therapists and consultants to treat an extra one million patients by 2020-21.

But the Royal College of Nursing said the plans did not add up, and more "hard cash" would be needed if the new staff were to be trained in time.

The government said an extra £1bn already promised for mental health services in England would fund the scheme - part of a pot of £1.3bn committed in 2016 to transform provision.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40752060

Given Hunt's stated aim to "end the "historic imbalance" between mental and physical health services.", his plan becomes clear now. Under fund the physical health services until the funding balances with mental health services...

From the Guardian article
The increase in mental nursing posts – 4,600 will be added in crisis care settings with an unspecified number of further posts in child and adolescent services – comes after a steep decline since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. By November last year, the number of mental health nurses working in the NHS had dropped by almost a sixth – a fall of 6,610 nurses in England, almost 15% of the entire workforce.
So yet more smoke and mirrors from our lovely Tory government. This announcement is using funds previously announced, so while it looks like new money is being invested it's not, and it won't fully address the fall in staffing numbers that they caused in the first place.
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
The plan aims to treat an extra 1 million people by 2021, provide mental health services seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and properly integrate mental and physical health services.
This from the Guardian makes me feel very uneasy. Are we all to be sent to occupational therapists with a leaflet so they can say "look, we're treating and extra 1 million people"? For M.E. sufferers "properly integrate mental and physical health services" has meant "improperly substitute mental for physical health services", and I'd like to see a lot less of it.

"We are spending 1.3 billion on mental health" is another way of saying "some people are going to be earning 1.3 billion from mental health" - a little transparency on who's cashing in and what for wouldn't come amiss.

And the fact that sums of this size are available for talk therapy whilst biomedical research into M.E. gets nothing is a (insert expletive of choice here) disgrace.
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
We don't need more talk therapy. We need to figure out the biological basis of so-called "mental" health issues. Terming a disorder "mental" really just means that we don't understand what it is. It's only one step up from calling it possession. Talk therapy is really just a modern form of exorcism. No wonder it was invented in the West, with its Christian history.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
Could this have to do with whom is President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (wessely)?

I could not possibly comment.

This from the Guardian makes me feel very uneasy. Are we all to be sent to occupational therapists with a leaflet so they can say "look, we're treating and extra 1 million people"?

Er, yes, that was my reading.
 
Messages
1,478
I wonder what they will do next? .....make out that colds and gi infections or arthritis are psychosomatic? I wish they would just get real and stop playing their silly games.

Just seems totally transparent to me that the NIce review, the rise of MUS centers, closure of vital units in our teaching hospitals, Brexit, are all bringing us to a point where they will destroy the health service and irradiate the care element completely.

I know the numbers don't stack up with low taxes and an aging population but is this really a viable answer? It's shallow thinking at its very very worst.
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
upload_2017-7-31_10-22-6.png


MI is a heart attack for anyone who, like me, thought for one horrible moment that he was trying to get an acronym for "mental illness" into common usage by listing it with two of the most common killers. I must be getting paranoid.

A 10 yr plan should see him nicely into retirement.
 

Skippa

Anti-BS
Messages
841
Jeez... hi future human beings studying this crazy period of social history!

Sorry we couldn't prevent this cluster fuck, not all people of this period bought into it.

Might I refer you to leeches and bloodletting for more "quackery of history".

Those who don't learn from their history...
 

Skippa

Anti-BS
Messages
841
View attachment 22754

MI is a heart attack for anyone who, like me, thought for one horrible moment that he was trying to get an acronym for "mental illness" into common usage by listing it with two of the most common killers. I must be getting paranoid.

A 10 yr plan should see him nicely into retirement.

I thought it was a typo for ME.

I know people who had a myocardial infarction who didn't then need to see a shrink.

WTF?

It (mental intervention) starts as an adjunctive to traditional medication, I wonder how long before patients can ONLY get mental help for cancer??

Absurd.
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
The plan aims to treat an extra 1 million people by 2021, provide mental health services seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and properly integrate mental and physical health services.

Code for "psychologize every difficult problem and abandon the patient while offering psychotherapy just so you can avoid the accusation of abandoning the patient".
 

Sean

Senior Member
Messages
7,378
A 10 yr plan should see him nicely into retirement.
Yeah, excuse me if my cynicism alarm is ringing off the wall.

If anybody was in any doubt that the problem we are dealing with is (and long has been) primarily a political one, not a scientific one, this madness should dispel any remaining doubts. Actual science simply doesn't count anymore in these decisions and policies. It is all now just a pseudo-scientific band-aid excuse to deny proper healthcare to millions, and then blame them for not getting any benefit from the madness.

Parity in funding between physical and mental health, independent of the effectiveness and relevance of the latter's interventions is a completely arbitrary and bogus benchmark, indicating nothing more than the degree to which the healthcare system has been corrupted by money, ideology, and pseudo-science.

Anybody want to bet that there will be no meaningful measures of how 'successful' this program is?

The most important question now for patients in the UK is how far the alternative government (Corbyn Labour) has been sucked into this cesspit.

Anybody has any close contacts with senior Labour people, now is a good time to try setting the record straight for them. If they fall for this madness then it is all over for UK patients, which will not help the rest of us either.
 
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