Writing in the Express, Nick Clegg explains why he is making mental health a top priority for the Liberal Democrats:
I have decided to make mental health one of my priorities for the next parliament, something no political party has ever done before.
I want this commitment to continue to overhaul our mental health services on the front page of the Liberal Democrat manifesto at the next election. That will include setting up a fund to seek out the best new treatments and spread them across the NHS. And we will boost funding by £500million.
Mental health is as important as physical health and it is time it got the status it deserves.
You can read the full article here.
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Research by the Nuffield Trust, for the FT shows that that ” Under the Liberal Democrats, funding would fall by £174 per patient between 2009 and 2020″. The figure under Labour is slightly less, under the Conservatives plans the reduction is slightly more.
The simple fact is that none of the political parties are prepared to confront the issues facing the NHS before the election.
Can anyone tell me when we passed this as our policy? I don’t recall this featuring in the pre-manifesto discussions. I do remember Nick Clegg announcing this as policy after we had agreed the pre-manifesto. Has the Policy Committee told Nick off for bounding the party? Isn’t it the Policy Committee’s job to decide what is on the front page of our manifesto?
How about if we had a different Leader for the Election. Just a thought to cheer everyone up!
Nuffield Trust view from their website:
“The deteriorating quality of mental health services is a real concern and the Liberal Democrats are absolutely right to focus their attention on this in the next parliament.
“Nick Clegg has highlighted the current imbalance between how long people wait for mental and physical health services. This is backed up by new research to be published on Friday through our QualityWatch programme with the Health Foundation.
Joe Otton
Nuffield Trust view from their website:
“The deteriorating quality of mental health services is a real concern and the Liberal Democrats are absolutely right to focus their attention on this in the next parliament.
“Nick Clegg has highlighted the current imbalance between how long people wait for mental and physical health services. This is backed up by new research to be published on Friday through our QualityWatch programme with the Health Foundation.
The Lib Dems are a party of government that has overseen the deteriorating quality of mental health services in this parliament via supporting policies with this outcome. Why should they be trusted to get things right in the next parliament, assuming of course they are a party of government next time?