Poor mental health can affect life expectancy

EARLIER this month the Royal College of Psychiatrists warned that there are not enough psychiatrists working in the Welsh NHS.

We have just six consultant psychiatrists per 100,000 patients, the lowest number out of all the UK home nations.

This is dire news when you consider one in four of us will experience mental health issues at some point in our lifetime.

The overall cost of mental health problems in Wales is around £7bn a year.

Poor mental health can have a significant impact on life expectancy and is known to be a key cause of health inequalities.

Research has found that the life expectancy of people with severe and enduring mental health issues is 10 years lower than the general population.

We simply don’t give mental health services the same priority that we give to physical health services. This needs to change.

Thankfully most of us will not need the services of specialist secondary care mental health services but tens of thousands of people do and a lack of psychiatrists is not the only problem they will face.

Around 18% of local primary mental health support services assessments take longer than the 28-day target and 19% of people will wait longer than 28 days for treatment to begin following that assessment.

Nearly 2,000 people still do not have a care and treatment plan.

Wales doesn’t have enough psychotherapists and as a result access to talking therapies is limited in most areas with waiting times of around a year in many parts of the country.

But the biggest problem and one that has dominated my postbag, is the state of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAHMS).

Over the past couple of years CAHMS referrals have doubled.

Young people referred to CAMHS have to wait much longer than adults have to wait.

The new target for referrals is 28 days but despite extra investment from the Welsh Government many young people have to wait more than half a year.

Mental health problems account for around a quarter of all health problems, yet we are spending just 11% of the NHS Wales budget on mental health services.

We need to give a bigger priority to mental health services and more importantly we need to train more psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists.