Parties Want Mental Health Issues Tackled

Labour and the Lib Dems are raising the need to tackle mental health issues as the parties continue to launch their opening salvos in the election campaign.

Ed Miliband has accused the coalition of failing people with mental health problems by making "false economies" in the NHS.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is calling for a target of "zero suicides", saying that the UK should aim to follow the lead of a city in America where the number taking their own lives has been dramatically reduced.

Mr Clegg will say at a conference on mental health: "Suicide is, and always has been, a massive taboo in our society. People are genuinely scared to talk about it, never mind intervene when they believe a loved one is at risk.

"That's why I'm issuing a call to every part of the NHS to commit to a new ambition for zero suicides.

"This isn't about blame. It is doing more in every area of our society to ensure that people don't get to that point where they believe taking their own life is their only option."

More than 5,900 people killed themselves in the UK in 2012, according to the Samaritans, most of them men. It is the leading cause of death among some age groups, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Mr Clegg wants hospitals to adopt the approach pioneered by a hospital in Detroit, called the Henry Ford Medical Group.

By increasing staff training, increasing contact with patients and educating families better, it cut suicide rates by 75% in four years.

By 2008, it had stopped suicide among its patients altogether.

At the same time, Mr Miliband has accused the coalition - of which Mr Clegg is a member - of failing to put in place measures that will ensure mental health issues are dealt with quickly, so that they do not escalate.

The Mental Health Taskforce report, commissioned by Mr Miliband in 2012, recommended early action to prevent problems escalating and increasing the burden on the NHS.

Mr Miliband said: "It cannot be right that when three-quarters of adult mental illness begins in childhood, children's mental health services get just six per cent of the mental health budget - nor that these vital services have been stripped back in recent years while £3bn has been wasted on an NHS reorganisation.

"Labour will work to reverse the damage suffered by child mental health services under this Government.

"And we will set an ambition that, over time, the proportion of the mental health budget spent on children will rise."

Mr Miliband said around 10% of children at any one time have a diagnosable mental health problem.

He said Labour would "work towards" 80% of adults and children waiting less than 28 days for access to help.