Senior officials at Britain’s National Health Service have warned that sky-high energy and food bills will cause a “major mental health crisis” this winter, which will put pressure on health services and threaten “people’s lives”.
With the sharp rise in British household bills, Saffron Cordere, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents all hospital and ambulance institutions of the NHS in England, indicated that there is a direct relationship between feeling deprived and the increased demand for care. health.
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It is worth noting that the need for mental health services has increased significantly over the past year, as the number of adult referrals to specialized doctors reached a monthly record of nearly 425,000 cases in March, while about 1.2 million adults are still waiting to receive medical care. Community mental health.
Ms. Cordiri told The Independent, “We will see huge mental health crises stemming from the challenges posed by the high cost of living we are facing, because we know that there is a direct link between deprivation, unemployment, potential homelessness and child poverty on the one hand, and the increased demand for mental health services on the one hand. second hand.”
“We noticed this a few years ago with the changes in government aid known as (universal support) packages, which presented challenges with far-reaching effects,” she added.
As for the result, according to Cordiri, it will reflect negatively “on the whole system” and threaten “people’s lives”, due to the pressures and burdens they will have to incur.
In this context, consumers received a warning from a prominent energy company in Britain that they will face months that are likely to be “tragic”, with millions of individuals suffering from difficulties in securing food for their families and heating their homes.
According to estimates by the energy company “EDF”, half of the number of households in the United Kingdom may suffer from fuel poverty next January, unless the British government makes more efforts to help it, noting that another huge increase in the energy price ceiling will be announced. This week, after expectations were released that inflation may reach 18 percent.
Sean Duggan, CEO of the Mental Health Network of the National Health Services Federation, confirmed that the crisis of the high cost of living has increased the demand for network services, and that “the situation is getting worse, according to the information received by us (from institutions that deal with mental health).”
Mental health charity Mind told The Independent it had seen a 30% increase in the past year in calls to its helpline from people facing financial hardship.
As for Ole Parker, Head of External Affairs at Young Minds, he said, “The indicators that we are starting to see as a result of the rising cost of living crisis are the impact on the mental health of children and young people. It is obvious that young people are concerned about their financial resources, and this is what children began to notice during Family meeting discussions around the dining table. He believed that “the most worrying thing is the expectations that the crisis will worsen and take a worse turn.”
Returning to Saffron Cordiri, the interim CEO of NHS Providers, she pointed out that mental health services, like those related to physical health, have been experiencing great pressure for some time, especially after the spread of the Corona pandemic, and partly attributed this to the decline in health. Psychological conditions among people who apply for treatment are worse than in previous years. This means that ambulance services, which are already under-resourced, are likely to receive more pressure to respond to distress calls.
She added, “If you ask any CEO of one of our organizations, especially the CEOs of ambulance services or hospitals, about the current conditions in the health sector, they will tell you that they have never experienced such pressure in their career, and that the situation is very bad.”
The Independent revealed this week that the number of people waiting to receive community mental health care has risen to 1.2 million, while the Services Authority has failed to achieve a number of goals set for it in this field.
The Lancashire Care Trust, which serves some of the most disadvantaged residents in the country, said that according to board records released in July, it had seen a 20 percent increase in demand for its services. He pointed out that the high demand for health services for adults, which began at the beginning of the current year 2022, continued during the summer.
On the other hand, according to data from the same hospital, it was found that the demand for mental health services for children was 15 percent higher in the first six months of the year, compared to 2021.
In a 2018 NHS Providers survey, nine out of ten mental health hospital directors asserted that changes to “comprehensive support” aid and other government benefits have increased demand for services.
Rosina Allen Khan, Minister of Mental Health in the Labor shadow government, also warned of a link between deprivation and mental illness. She added that “mental health services have been under tremendous pressure for some time, with the increasing waiting lists, which sometimes extend for years for some children to receive treatment, and long days for some individuals in the (emergency and accident) departments, due to the lack of mental health beds for them.”
And she considered that “the high cost of living caused by (conservatives) put additional pressure on mental health services.”
Commenting on the foregoing, an official spokeswoman said that the government had announced financial support worth 37 billion pounds ($44 billion), which is specifically aimed at providing support to people during the winter season.
She added, “We are in the process of expanding and developing the working mechanism of mental health services, which is expected to witness additional funding annually of more than two billion and 300 million pounds (two billion and 720 million dollars) by 2024, in order to provide an opportunity for about two million additional people across England to obtain for help”.