In his latest column for the Sevenoaks Chronicle, Michael has written about the challenge of mental health:<\/p>\n
For too long, mental health was a taboo subject.\u00a0 But with MPs and celebrities speaking out about their own experiences, much of the stigma that used to be associated with mental illness has gone.<\/em><\/p>\n In its place, though, is a realisation of how significant this challenge is for our country.\u00a0 One in four people experience a mental health problem each year, with myriad effects on their families, jobs and lives.<\/em><\/p>\n We have made a lot of progress already.\u00a0 Mental health now has parity of esteem with physical health in the NHS; five times more people are accessing treatment for conditions like depression and anxiety than six years ago; and extra funding is being invested in mental healthcare over the next few years.<\/em><\/p>\n But more money and warm words need to mean something practical.\u00a0 That means coming up with innovative and wide-ranging ways to make sure people get the help they need.<\/em><\/p>\n I have recently been meeting local organisations to discuss their efforts to meet this challenge.\u00a0 Their work includes better liaison services in A&E, provided by Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT).\u00a0 Another improvement is cooperation between KMPT and Kent Police to give people the care they need, rather than a night in a cell because there is nowhere else to go.\u00a0 West Kent Mind has always offered a fantastic service to our community that I have been proud to support.\u00a0 Now it is also providing counsellors, alongside KMPT, to talk to vulnerable callers to the emergency services.<\/em><\/p>\n There is still a lot more to do.\u00a0 People need to be able to find help more easily and the system needs to be simpler.<\/em><\/p>\n But with these organisations working together to find the innovative solutions we need, this is a challenge we can beat.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his latest column for the Sevenoaks Chronicle, Michael has written about the challenge of mental health: For too long, mental health was a taboo subject.\u00a0 But with MPs and celebrities speaking out about their own experiences, much of the stigma that used to be associated with mental illness has gone. In its place, though, … Continue reading “Column: We’ve Beaten Mental Health Stigma – Now Let’s Finish the Job”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[464,438,133,132,446],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}