12 July 2017
Macclesfield & East Cheshire folk were alarmed by last month’s announcement that adult mental health inpatient facilities at Macclesfield Hospital’s Millbrook Centre could close. Patients and their friends and relatives would be expected to travel to Chester - 40 miles away, with no direct transport links - or even further, to the Wirral. Vulnerable people face the prospect of often lengthy hospital stays in strange towns, isolated from regular contact with loved ones.
The Green Party believes that the treatment of mental health should be on a par with physical health, with everyone getting the treatment they need.
Figures released earlier this year show that mental health budgets are being cut by £4.5m in five areas of England this year, despite the Conservative Party promising to increase spending. Three in four people who need mental health support are not getting it; between 2013 and 2016 the amount of the health budget spent on mental health fell from 1.4% to 0.7%.
We must put the wellbeing of people ahead of the Conservative Party’s destruction of our public services. Treatment of mental health should be treated with equal seriousness to that of physical health so that we can truly support those who are suffering - very often alone and in silence - with the weight of a mental health illness.
Let’s create a caring Britain that looks after people with mental health problems. This should start with schools looking to build a society where people look out for each other, offering awareness and empathy education to help prevent bullying and school-based therapy to treat mental health earlier.
Greens say don’t just treat illness; we call on the Tory Government to reverse their failed policies and tackle the factors that contribute to poor mental health, like housing shortages, rising poverty and cuts to public services.
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