Agenda item

To receive a report from the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health, setting out the action plan, on which the committee is invited to comment.  

Ms Mookherjee, Consultant in Public Health, and Ms E Hanson, Head of Commissioning, were in attendance for this item.

1.            Ms Mookherjee introduced the report and invited all Members to attend the events taking place at County Hall on 10 October to celebrate World Mental Health Day. She set out the ongoing commitment to champion mental health issues in the workplace, to achieve parity of esteem for mental and physical health and tackle stigma and discrimination so mental health issues could be easier to talk about and address. She advised that, out of the twenty or so people in the meeting room, eight would experience some form of mental health problem at some time in their life, and that there was a 25-year gap in life expectancy between those with poor mental health and those with good mental health.

2.            Ms Mookherjee and Ms Hanson responded to comments and questions from the committee, including the following:-

a)    the Time to Change initiative was driven by the voluntary sector but  had much public health support.  Kent had a very good public health programme which was well resourced and was doing much work with strategic partners;

b)    much work was going on with schools to engage children in talking about mental health issues, and a report on this work could go to a future meeting of this committee;

c)    Ms Marsh explained that she was the Member champion for mental health issues and promoted the events planned at County Hall to celebrate World Mental Health Day on 10 October. She explained that the Time to Change initiative had been in place since 2007 and said that mental health was something that no employer could afford to ignore, as one in four British workers would suffer from anxiety or depression at some time in their career, and many working days were lost to this every year, although it was known that many people calling in sick did not give this as the reason for their absence from work.  She thanked the Cabinet Member, Mr Gibbens, for his efforts to protect the mental health budget from cuts in recent years;

d)    a view was expressed that the current mental health campaigns did not go far enough and mental health issues needed a higher profile, comparable to media events such as Comic Relief;

e)    a view was expressed that many men found it difficult to identify and admit that they had mental health problems;

f)     another speaker said that mental health campaigns should highlight how good recovery could be and that mental ill health did not necessarily need to be ‘a life sentence’; and

g)    work to achieve parity of esteem for mental and physical health was welcomed. Mental ill health could be seen as a treatable illness in the same way as ‘flu; something from which one could and would recover.

3.            The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, Mr Gibbens, said had he fought hard to protect mental health budgets from cuts over the last ten years and hoped the Cabinet Committee would feel able to endorse the Time to Change Action Plan. 

4.            RESOLVED that theTime toChange Action Plan be endorsed and comments made by Members on strengthening theplan insubsequent years,in commitmentto the Timeto Changecampaign, be noted.