Author Archives: Amna Ahmad

Amna Ahmad

World Mental Health Day

By Amna Ahmad | Wed 10th October 2018 - 7:35 am

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 suffer from a mental health problem in our lifetime. Our young people are particularly at risk, with half of all mental illness beginning by the age of 14. Children’s mental health services, or ‘CAMHS’, are struggling to cope and the burden on teachers, who deal with the effects on the front line in schools. The rates of antidepressant use in our country are on the rise.

This Government promised £20 billion extra funding for the NHS in June this year. However, we are still waiting for more detail and to understand how this will help those who are suffering. The shadow of Brexit is leading to opportunity cost in this policy area. The lack of initiative means we are losing lives.

This may seem stark, but this is the real cost of inaction in mental health.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged | 4 Comments
Amna Ahmad

Opinion: The week after the Morrissey Report – what will you do?

By Amna Ahmad | Fri 21st June 2013 - 3:59 pm

Last week Helena Morrissey published the results of her inquiry into how the Liberal Democrats handled allegations of sexual harassment. In our 24 hour news cycle, this may already seem like old news. But it is vital for the future of women in politics that do not allow the report and its conclusions to be forgotten. The change cannot only be top down – it must also be a grassroots movement.

The Lib Dems are not the first institution to be found to have mishandled allegations of sexual harassment. It is particularly galling for party members though, as the picture …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 19 Comments
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  • Jana
    We don’t need a cap on donations - we need a cap on total spending by each political party, both on routine running costs each year and on specific election c...
  • Mohammed Amin
    I have just read the full story on PoliticsHome. It is sobering to be reminded how quickly things can change. I congratulate Anna Sabine on being open about ...
  • David Vigar
    Good thinking. And close to the fundamental beliefs of Paddy Ashdown, with whom I worked in the 1990s. His thinking was that if every citizen could fulfil their...
  • Peter Martin
    It's really nothing new that politics is dominated by "big money". It's not all about donations to political parties. We've seen the effects that Murdoch's news...
  • Chloe
    "Are you suggesting their ‘super-rich supporters’ are doing it out of pure altruism, Jana, or do you think they want to get something out of it"... If you ...