Both Tim Farron and Norman Lamb have taken note that today is World Mental Health Day. As someone who has had lifelong experience of Anxiety and Depression in varying degrees of intensity,I appreciate the way in which they and Nick Clegg before them fought to get this issue to the forefront. It also greatly aggrieves […]
mental health
Disgraceful attitude to mental health disguised by the warm words of Iain Duncan-Smith
Listening to Iain Duncan-Smith can be enough to send anyone to sleep. He drones on and one can be lulled into thinking he is being quite reasonable. However, behind his warm words, there is a chilling attitude to disabilities and particularly to mental illness. He seems to be saying: There must be something you can […]
LibLink: Jim Hume MSP: Out of sight, out of mind? Why the SNP need to get serious on mental health
Liberal Democrat MSP Jim Hume has been writing on the Scottish Liberal Democrat website about the crisis in mental health care in Scotland, where they haven’t had a Norman Lamb in power transforming mental health provision. In Scotland during the last 5 years, over 4000 people were treated outside their own health board. Jim says […]
Jim Hume MSP: Scottish mental health units ‘struggling to cope’
From the Scotsman today: More than 4,000 patients have been sent for mental health treatment outside their health board area in the past five years, according to latest figures. The Scottish Liberal Democrats, who obtained the figures through parliamentary questions, have warned that mental health units across Scotland are struggling to cope with demand. The […]
Opinion: We need to be more aware of neural diversity
It’s obvious that whomever wins the leadership we’re going to have to nurture a lot of new people (as well as the `old hands`. I think it’s important that we do so working with the grain of that individual’s personality to allow it to grow for the benefit of the Party. After all, celebration of […]
Opinion: A life discarded
View image | gettyimages.com Mr K. had arrived on the wing at Brixton Prison on the Friday. By Monday morning he was dead. He had managed to hang himself using a sheet tied around the window bars. No-one knew what time he had died. It would be interesting to know whether the inquest showed […]
Opinion: Ending mental health inequality
I joined the Liberal Democrats partially due to the importance that has constantly been put on mental health issues by the party. I have suffered from extreme depression and have ended up in A&E due to self-harm and suicidal thoughts. A couple of weeks ago I was officially discharged from psychiatry and I’m using my […]
Opinion: We made Mental Health an issue – now we must lead the fight to make it possible
Having worked as a frontline mental health social worker for the past 15 years, there was no-one prouder than I was to see Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb push mental health care (and its place within the NHS) up the political agenda . There is no doubt that without the determination of our gutsy Party, […]
LibLink: Norman Lamb on a mission
View image | gettyimages.com Over on Huffington Post, Norman Lamb has written about his campaign to end discrimination against mental health. The Liberal Democrats are on a mission to end the discrimination against mental health. From Paul Burstow who changed the law to give mental health equality with physical health to my work ensuring […]
Opinion: First term councillor diary – mental health, the Council and me
In 1998 I lived 500 yards from Mick Philpott who was later convicted of killing 6 of his children. I’d met him on one occasion and was told even then he was an odd individual. Never did I expect to see him on the telly, but, having lived in that area, hearing what he had […]