{"id":13419,"date":"2017-09-15T12:41:50","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T11:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=13419"},"modified":"2017-09-15T13:25:57","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T12:25:57","slug":"mental-health-care-plea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=13419","title":{"rendered":"Mental health care plea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This year Prime Minister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s questions fell on the day the NHS turned 69. It was July 5 and Theresa May told MPs that the country has \u00e2\u20ac\u015bmore nurses in our hospitals than we had in 2010\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the same time, but in a seemingly different universe, Unite officer Dave Munday was at a Mental Health Nurses Association<\/a> (MNHA) meeting in Salford to discuss the \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdrastic decline\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 in their numbers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Prime Minister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weasel words were technically correct: the NHS does have more nurses. However, her proclamation obscured the fact that there are also 40,000 unfilled nursing roles<\/a> and the increase has not compensated for the inexorable rise in demand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Theresa May\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bombast was an attempt to obscure the truth about the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 systematic dismantling of the health service. The reality is the embattled NHS is in the midst of the worst staffing crisis in its history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nowhere is this more apparent than the fall in mental health nurses \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not only are there not enough to meet demand, their numbers have actually fallen by 5,000<\/a> since 2010. It is a dark irony that many mental health workers are now suffering mental ill health themselves as a result.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hunt <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unite is warning that health secretary Jeremy Hunt cannot be trusted to reverse the crisis in mental health care and its knock on effects. Hunt claims<\/a> the government is going to hire 21,000 mental health staff in order to treat an extra 1m people by 2021 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c plans the Royal College of Nursing says \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdo not add up\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite professional mental health lead Munday is also dubious.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe Hunt is going to do what he says. His record<\/a> on the NHS speaks for itself. This government dresses announcements up to sound like improvements are going to be made, yet the NHS crisis continues and the promises are never delivered.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI hope for the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake that Hunt turns things around because this is a critical issue \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially for mental health care. Mental health nurses are being driven into the ground and the people who rely on their services are suffering because of that.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Crisis <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the summer the crisis in mental health services came under increasing scrutiny. In August, the revelation that a bed in an appropriate facility could not be found for a 17-year-old girl who was in danger of taking her own life shocked the country.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The case prompted the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most senior family judge to decry the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdisgraceful and utterly shaming lack of proper provision<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u0165. This week, research from the Royal College of Psychiatrists found that \u00e2\u20ac\u015blarge inequalities<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 in access to psychiatric care has resulted in a postcode lottery for patients.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Munday says increasing mental health nurse numbers is vital to improving services. To do this the government needs to invest in mental health instead of continuing to cut services, incentivise demoralised staff and encourage people to enter the profession.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need ring-fenced mental health funding, an end to the pay freeze and the reintroduction of nursing bursaries,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Munday explained.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The NHS crisis is also increasingly taking its toll on staff and their union reps, a hidden mental health issue which worries Munday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Health service staff are under growing and unsustainable pressure, which leads some to develop mental ill-health due to stress and rock-bottom morale. This can rub-off on union reps, many of whom have close relationships with their members, explained Munday \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who said he speaks from experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI know myself it can be really hard. Many reps are close to members who are experiencing hard times and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult for them to switch off afterwards. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not trained mental health professionals.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Systemic changes needed <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To help deal with the issue Unite has initiated mental health training<\/a> for reps throughout the country, however Munday is eager to see more systemic changes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These include having the government introduce a minister for mental health, in order to achieve parity with physical health and investigate how government policies impact people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s psychological wellbeing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Munday said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need a mental health minister who is independent of other departments to look at how policies affect services and people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mental health.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSuch a move would show the government means what it says about prioritising mental health and help ensure that the huge impact mental health has both at work, and in society in general, is recognised and dealt with.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year Prime Minister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s questions fell on the day the NHS turned 69. It was July 5 and Theresa May told MPs that the country has \u00e2\u20ac\u015bmore nurses in our hospitals than we had in 2010\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.   At the same time, but in a seemingly different universe, Unite officer Dave Munday was at a Mental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[443,404,29,80],"wps_subtitle":"Unite: more nurses and \u00e2\u20ac\u0098systemic change\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 call","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13419"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13421,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419\/revisions\/13421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}