I have mixed feelings about this. More money going into mental health is welcome as the underfunding has been scandalous - suicidal children held in police cells for days because there are no beds. Can you imagine the outcry if a cancer patient was told they'd have to sleep down the local nick because the hospital was full?
As for talking therapies, the problem, IMHO, is not them getting more funding. The wait for such therapies for people that can actually be helped by them - people with anxiety, self-esteem, some depressive disorders - is unacceptably high; I've known somebody with anxiety attacks so crippling he couldn't leave the house have to wait nine months for an appointment. The problem is misdiagnosis and patients being shoved off to talking therapy without a proper investigation of whether they have an issue that can be helped by it. If there is a big push to fund talking therapies, the danger is more people with ME, FM, CRPS or temporal lobe epilepsy get sent off for CBT as the default 'difficult patient' option, much like SSRIs are dished out today. The answer here has to be GP education though, rather than a funding issue.
So hence the mixed feelings: concerned that this will lead to a further 'MUPS' landgrab, but pleased at more money going into mental health in general.
As for talking therapies, the problem, IMHO, is not them getting more funding. The wait for such therapies for people that can actually be helped by them - people with anxiety, self-esteem, some depressive disorders - is unacceptably high; I've known somebody with anxiety attacks so crippling he couldn't leave the house have to wait nine months for an appointment. The problem is misdiagnosis and patients being shoved off to talking therapy without a proper investigation of whether they have an issue that can be helped by it. If there is a big push to fund talking therapies, the danger is more people with ME, FM, CRPS or temporal lobe epilepsy get sent off for CBT as the default 'difficult patient' option, much like SSRIs are dished out today. The answer here has to be GP education though, rather than a funding issue.
So hence the mixed feelings: concerned that this will lead to a further 'MUPS' landgrab, but pleased at more money going into mental health in general.