In a parliamentary debate on Tuesday, Wera Hobhouse outlined how sufferers of eating disorders are being failed by health and support services. Lack of training can mean that doctors make things worse. She told the story of a young woman in her constituency who suffered for three years and never received the help that she […]
Lib Dem Voice
Every day should be Mental Health Awareness Day
We all have mental health, as we all have physical health. That is established. I welcome World Mental Health Awareness Day – it is great that we can celebrate and work together on better mental health for all. However, we need to recognise that fighting for good mental health provision and raising awareness is a […]
World Mental Health Day
It is World Mental Health Day. It is a time to celebrate how far we have come in the UK when it comes to talking about mental health. It is also the time to recognise the ongoing crisis and redouble our efforts. We have all seen the headlines – 1 in 4 of us will […]
A Basis for a National Health and Well-Being Policy?
The Frome Model of Enhanced Care is a GP focussed, community serving and using way of creating, assessing and delivering comprehensive health and well-being skills, services and attitudes, in, with and for a community, at a low to negative net cost. Its administration is remarkably inclusive, heterarchical or flat. It is so attractive that it […]
Scottish Conference passes groundbreaking policy on ME
A year ago, Emma Walker hadn’t got round to joining the Liberal Democrats. She finally took the plunge in November 2017 and since then has made a massive impact. She’s launching a pioneering recruitment campaign (of which more in due course) and at last week’s Scottish Conference, she proposed her motion on ME. ME Action […]
My view on our conference motion to end discrimination in mental health care
The problem with conference is that it is impossible to get to everything! I was hoping to speak on Sunday morning in our debate on the policy motion entitled, “Ending Discrimination In Mental Health Provision”. Regular readers of LDV know that mental health policy is an area I feel strongly about, so I am gutted […]
Vince Cable writes…We need to catch up with our European neighbours in fighting Cancer
Cancer is traumatising. It is universal, leaving no family untouched. I saw this first-hand. Cancer took my first wife, Olympia, in 2001. To repeat what I wrote in my memoirs, that experience showed me that whatever may be said in criticism of the NHS, the capacity of the system to deliver high quality, sophisticated treatment […]
Inequality in society harms our mental health – how can we fix it?
“Wealth is not a measure of worth. But low income is related to feelings of inferiority.” Across a range of countries, studies have shown, the experience of poverty leads to people believing they have failed themselves for being poor, and accepting that others feel like that about them. This is part of the remarkable findings […]
Scottish Liberal Democrats highlight perinatal mental health
As Mental Health Awareness Week draws to a close, Willie Rennie again used his questions to the First Minister to highlight the crisis in Scotland’s mental health provision: Post-natal depression and depression during pregnancy affect up to one in five women. Half the women who experience it will go undetected and untreated. During an FMQs […]
Mental Health Awareness Week 2018
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. The theme is this year is stress. Stress can pervade our lives, but one aspect is stress at work. Keeping a mentally-healthy workforce is best for everyone: the employees, the business and the customers. Being self-employed as a musician, workplace stress has a slightly different connotation. I’m preparing […]