Your voice, your choice: More mental health help needed

He received help from his local mental health crisis team and was eventually unable to work for nine weeks while he recovered.

Simon says that overall he is doing “fantastically well”, even though he is “not yet at the end” of his recovery.

However, he believes that earlier personal intervention would have helped him.

“If I had had the personal support beforehand, I probably wouldn’t have had the problems in November,” he says.

“I think some of the offers are good, but in my opinion there are not enough of them.”

Simon is now calling for more investment in mental health services and demanding that parties make mental health a priority in this election.

“It destroys people’s families. It destroys people’s lives unnecessarily. It almost destroyed mine, and that’s not OK,” he says.

Almost two-thirds (66%) of respondents expressed concern about the state of mental health care provided by the NHS.

According to a report by the National Audit Office, an estimated 1.2 million people were on the waiting list for NHS community mental health services at the end of June 2022.

Rosie Weatherley, spokeswoman for Mind, says it is “very, very urgent that the next government makes mental health a priority”.

Simon believes that his problems are made worse by the fact that he is a man.

He says that men often feel like they have to “act like men and grow up.”

“It’s something people don’t want to talk about because they see it as a sign of weakness,” he says.

Simon is now a member of Andy’s Man Club, a suicide prevention charity for men. He says it has “helped him enormously” to talk to other men who have had similar experiences. He also now volunteers for the charity.

“No one should take their own life because it is a final decision that cannot be reversed,” he says.

“Feeling depressed is a temporary thing, but taking one’s own life is a permanent thing.”

The Conservatives say their suicide prevention strategy will ensure employers in predominantly male sectors provide appropriate support for their employees, such as mental health first aid, and will expand mental health programmes, including NHS talking therapies, during the next parliamentary term.

Work According to the company, 8,500 psychologists will be hired to reduce waiting lists for psychiatric treatment, provide psychiatric care in every school and open open clinics in “every community so that young men and boys are not left alone to suffer.”

The Liberal Democrats are calling for the introduction of regular mental health assessments. They also say they will employ a qualified psychologist in every school.

The green The plan is to ensure that anyone who needs it has access to evidence-based psychotherapy within 28 days. In addition, a trained and paid counsellor is to be available in every primary school, secondary school and sixth form college.

Plaid Cymru says it supports reform of the Mental Health Act. It says reform is “overdue”. It also says that in addition to devolving full powers…

The BBC turned to the Scottish National Party And Reform Great Britainbut they didn’t answer.

The SNP’s manifesto called on the next UK government to increase spending on the NHS by £10 billion a year, with £1.6 billion of that going to Scotland, while the Reform Party promised an additional £17 billion a year for the NHS.

If you are affected by the issues in this story, you can get help and support through ^ “BBC Action Line”.