Cover story
6 | drinkanddrugsnews | November 2016
TURN OFF THE TAP
Mental health is in
crisis – more so for
people from minority
groups. How do we
reach them before
they drown? DDN
reports from the
Minority Mental
Health conference
‘T
here is outrageous discrimination against people with mental health
problems… there is an absolute moral imperative on all of us to do
something about the situation,’ said Norman Lamb MP.
The shadow Liberal Democrat spokesperson on health was
addressing the Minority Mental Health conference, Ending
discrimination in mental health: turning the crisis tap off, held in London last month.
The event brought together professionals from all areas of health and social care to
look at ‘one of the deepest and most discriminatory social failures of our education,
social, health and criminal justice services’.
In many cases substance misuse was identified as playing a crucial part in
developing mental health problems, while others used substances to self-medicate
their mental health issues. In all cases, people were being failed by a complete lack of
coordinated care and a health and social care system in crisis.
‘People need diversion [into the appropriate support] when entering the system –
but we need to do more than this,’ said Lamb. ‘We need to address the underlying
causes of mental health problems, and we need to stop the dreadful flow into the
criminal justice system.’
Among the headline statistics, Black African Caribbean men were up to 6.6 times as
likely to be admitted as inpatients or detained under the Mental Health Act as the
average population. While attending a recent event organised by the charity Black
Mental Health UK, Lamb – who has long campaigned for better treatment and
understanding of people with mental illness – said ‘the degree of anger, frustration and
disadvantage I came across shocked me to the core. I came away feeling something had
to be done to address the anger from people in that situation.’
The aim of this latest event was ‘not to call for more research, but to look at what
we can do together to turn the crisis tap off,’ said Gill Arukpe, chief executive of the
Social Interest Group, created by Penrose and Equinox to support people with a range of
needs, including mental ill health and alcohol/drug dependence. ‘Why do so many black
people end up in mental health services or prison?’ she asked. ‘Why do so many end up
in a crisis situation?’
Ending discrimination needed a change of approach, to look at how we can make a
difference to individuals’ lives, said Antony Miller, Penrose’s director of operations. Early
intervention was important; The Sainsbury’s Centre for Mental Health said counselling
should always be available, but people were having to wait six to nine months for
access to talking therapies.
‘What do we do to make people feel they can access services and engage?’ he asked.
‘Early intervention has to be better than dealing with problems when they are fully
entrenched.’
We also needed to be much more responsive. ‘It’s not about saying to people, “this is
your journey, this is your pathway”. It’s about listening.’
At workshop discussions on ‘the service user’s voice’, a delegate from Camden and
Islington Mental Health Trust commented, ‘We need to start listening to the service
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