Farron visits local mental health services
Tim Farron today visited the drop-in at South Lakes MIND in Kendal, to help raise awareness of their services as part of national Mental Health Awareness Week, which runs until the 14th May.
Tim visited the drop-in and met with service users and staff, to find out more about their activities and how the organisation is helping local people.
As part of the Lib Dem's health plans, the party is pledging an extra £1bn of funding nationally to help tackle the "historic injustice" faced by people with mental ill health. This will be funded as part of the £6bn funding boost for the NHS, raised by the additional penny on income tax. Locally, this will provide a £40m boost to Cumbria's NHS, including mental health services.
Tim said: "Under the Conservatives, mental health services have been stretched to breaking point. Just last summer our mental health ward here in Kendal was almost closed. Only the Lib Dems are proposing a fully costed plan for investing in mental health services.
"Mental health issues affect a huge number of people, and I hope we can all use Mental Health Awareness Week as a time to talk about the importance of mental health with those around us.
"It was great to visit South Lakes MIND today, and to hear about the important services they provide. I would encourage anyone in need of support to get in touch with them."
To find out more about the services provided by South Lakes MIND go to www.slmind.org or call: 01539 740591
The Liberal Democrats' 12 priorities for mental health in the next parliament will be as follows:
1. Access and Waiting Time Standards - We will invest in comprehensive access and waiting time standards for mental health care in the NHS.
2. Children and Young People's Mental Health - We will tackle the growing mental health crisis among children and young people, and ensure timely access to high-quality support.
3. Eating Disorder Services - We will guarantee that children and young people struggling with an eating disorder get fast access to evidence-based treatment, close to home.
4. Maternal mental health - We will transform mental health support for pregnant women, new mothers and those who have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth, and help them get early care when needed.
5. Out of Area Placements - We will end the scandal of people with mental ill health being shunted across the country because there is no support available close to home.
6. Learning Disabilities and Autism - We will ensure that people with learning disabilities and autism are treated with the same dignity, rights and respect that we would demand for anyone else.
7. Stigma and Awareness - We will build on recent progress in tackling the stigma and raising awareness of mental health issues.
8. Mental Health in the Workplace - We will ensure that employers take active responsibility for improving the mental health and wellbeing of their staff, by developing a Wellbeing Premium.
9. Back to work support - We will accelerate the roll-out of Individual Placement and Support, a proven approach to getting people with severe mental ill-health back into work.
10. The Use of Force - We will end the scandalous and inappropriate use of force against people with mental ill health.
11.Suicide - We will prioritise a national ambition to dramatically reduce the number of people who take their own lives.
12. Research - We will ensure that a fair proportion of public funding for medical research is focused on research into mental health, to support the development of more effective approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment.