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“For the past 10 or 15 years, we have had an increase in the percentage of people requiring mental health support,” says Smith, who focuses on treating young adults.
The reasons are complicated and manifold, she says, but include the long economic impact of the financial crisis, which put families under strain, as well as the crippling effects of the pandemic and lockdown, which increased loneliness and isolation.
She also cites expensive and insecure housing as a factor, as well as the potential for social media to feed users a cycle of negative posts.
Treating so many people is tough and there are not enough doctors to meet the need. Almost one-fifth of consultant posts are vacant in the specialism, says Smith, who is also president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
NHS numbers tell a similar story. Last year 1.2 million people were on the waiting list for community mental health services.
More than a quarter of a million children and young people referred to mental health services in 2022-23 were still waiting for support at the end of that period, the Children’s Commissioner for England has found.
This is not merely a crisis for the individual patients or for the health service as a whole. Poor mental health is now so widespread that it is becoming a drag on the economy.
“The number of young people not working due to poor health has doubled in the last decade. People in their early 20s are now more likely than those in their early 40s to be out of work due to poor health. That is really quite striking,” says Louise Murphy, economist at the Resolution Foundation.
“It is very different to what we saw 25 years ago, when there was a very straightforward trend that the older you got, the more likely you were to have poor health and therefore the more likely you were to be out of work.”
Worsening mental health is a key factor behind this trend.
Missing out on the early stages of a career can have lifelong effects on earning power, known to economists as “scarring”. In effect, people never catch up after missing out on these crucial early opportunities.
Policymakers are worried and searching for solutions. However, at the moment it looks as if the situation is only likely to get worse.
A growing number of school children are suffering with mental health conditions, meaning that unless something changes dramatically a new generation of youngsters are likely to struggle when they leave education and – if they are well enough – seek work.
More than one in five pupils aged between eight and 16 are believed to have a “probable mental health disorder”, according to NHS surveys. That is up from one in eight before the pandemic.
On top of that an additional 12pc are deemed to have a “possible disorder”.
The figure rises to nearly a quarter among older teenagers, aged from 17 to 19. In this group, almost one in three young women are thought to have a probable disorder.
Half of mental illnesses start before the age of 14, says Smith, with 75pc beginning by the age of 24. Early treatment can cure around one-quarter of cases completely. Waiting risks leaving sufferers with chronic conditions and relapses.
Tackling this mental health crisis – and the associated worklessness that goes with it – has become a priority for the Government.
Employers are desperately short of staff – there were more than 900,000 open vacancies at the start of the year, according to the Office for National Statistics. Doing more to hire and keep those with mental health conditions in work would be good for the workers and good for the companies.
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