Mental Health in the UK

This assignment delves into the multifaceted landscape of mental health within the United Kingdom. It presents statistical data on the prevalence of mental health issues, explores the social factors that contribute to these conditions, and analyzes the impact of mental illness on individuals, families, and society as a whole. The assignment also touches upon the healthcare system's role in addressing mental health needs and highlights key challenges faced by those seeking support.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health problem has been emerged as the biggest disorder of the entire world
nowadays. As the world population is growing day-by-day, the competition to survive in the
world has affected people drastically and this stress and competition for the survival of the fittest,
has made the world population suffer from mental health issues (Kessler et al. 2013). The United
Kingdom is also suffering from mental health issues and according to the national statistical data,
every one in four people of UK is suffering from mental health problems. In England itself, one
in six people suffers from anxiety or depression due to their workload, family pressure and others
(Mental Health Foundation 2017). According to the stats, mental disorders are the prime reason
for the increasing disability in the world nowadays and causes over 40 million of disables every
year (Mind 2017). This essay focuses on the contemporary mental health issues in current mental
healthcare settings and then evaluate the implication of the care service guideline provided by the
National Service Framework by the government of the UK. Further, the essay will discuss the
issues that can influence the care for people with mental health problem with detailed roles of
social services, healthcare trusts and private sector while working together for the service users.
Finally, the essay will discuss the ways and strategies to use such framework in the workplace
with equality and legal support to provide quality care to service users. This section will also
examine and evaluate the roles of formal and informal carers in supporting service users in
community and the impact of it in long-term care.
Outcome 1
Mental health in UK is one of the biggest concerns of the government and it is trying
hard to eliminate this disorder from the society. However, the workload for employees, study
pressure for young pupils and stress of family in older adults are few problems that cannot be
eliminated. These are the biggest reasons of people suffering from mental illness worldwide. The

2MENTAL HEALTH
prime issue in the mental healthcare setting is “Right care Right price” policy (Rogers and
Pilgrim 2014). This leads to three main issues that the entire healthcare setting is suffering from
in UK. These are monopsony or multiple service providers for one users and their local
authorities, the relationship of price and quality and finally discrimination based on price. These
issues affects the fairness of pricing of the care as well as confuses the service users and
minimizes the long-term effects. The fairness of pricing is confusing for the service users
because service providers charge different amount from different customers depending on their
Socio-economic status and the price of same care is different in different place, seasons and
timings of the year (Murray, Farrington and Sekol 2012). While evaluating these points it was
evident that due to such discrimination and unfair behavior in the care setting, people have
become ignorant to their mental health and they do not reach to any health expert to discuss their
problem. Hence, in such situation the National Service Framework Guidelines should be
followed to create a sustainable financial economy in place of mixed economy among care
providers. This will help to strengthen the link of investment with quality, to let people access
quality care with being discriminated, to improve public knowledge about the care they are
acquiring and inform the families too, who are paying for the care for their loved ones (McGorry,
Bates and Birchwood 2013).
According to the National Service Framework Guidelines will help to accelerate the
quality of healthcare and will remove the wide and improper differences in provision. The prime
focus of this guideline is on the mental health needs of the adults who are working up to 65 years
of age and covers the health promotion, assessment diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and care.
The framework sets national standards and describes different service models to promote mental
health and to treat mental illness (National Service Framework 2017). Further, it places all these

3MENTAL HEALTH
points in places to assist the local delivery in support of the service users. Finally, it evaluates the
progress of the client by using different milestones and performance indicators. It involves the
service user, their family and the care providers in the planning implementation and evaluation
of the care and deliver high quality treatment irrespective of the socio-economic status of the
user. The care providers will promote the mental health in their staff and population will let them
be independent while working or will empower and support their staff. The framework also helps
to assess the needs of children and young people and focuses on the care provided to the
interface of age 16 to 18. There are different institution that focuses on the mental problems of
children or children of mentally ill patients and Mental Health Modernization Fund or Mental
health Grant funds these childcare settings (Slade et al. 2014).
Outcome 2
In current society, the mindset of people regarding mental health is biggest concern as per
the social norms, seeing a doctor for chest pain is normal, whereas, consulting a counsellor or
expert to combat mental pain is a matter of shame and disgrace. Therefore, despite of its
widespread presence and disabling nature, it is hidden and less spoken about. Any people such as
mothers, teenagers, children, older adults can become affected at any point of time with mental
problems, which costs roughly around £103 billion per year. Hence, the need of focusing on
issues that affects the care provided to mentally ill person has emerged as the major concern of
the government (World Health Organization 2014). The five major issues that the government
has identified are lack of support, lack of funding, no specific standards, lack of unity in care
service providers and social aspect. Within these, lack of support is very important as the lack is
for both the care providers from the government and for the service users from the society and
care service providers. Healthcare providers are unable to assess their own mental health and that

4MENTAL HEALTH
of their colleagues, which affects the care, which is provided to a service user. Further lack of
funding is another issue that influences care provided to the user as the government is trying hard
to fund all the care providers to provide an equal and quality care throughout the population. The
role of social services, public and private healthcare providers are of very importance to make
the framework provided by the government successful.
In spite of the fact that, government driven public sector healthcare sector provides the
care as per the norms of the framework, the role of social service has major importance. It helps
to change the mindset of the society from the grass root level and eliminates the barriers to
acquire quality healthcare. Social workers are connected to the each level of society and hence,
they are able to reduce the incidences of disease in the population by changing the stressful
environment and influences the person to cope up with the odd situations in life. They prevent
the mental disorders by promoting mental health and ways to maintain mental health among the
population (Rowe 2012). They spread the known risks for mental health among the communities
and strengthen them with the legislative laws to attain quality healthcare. Social service workers
can help the population of UK by delivering different professional services. They can counsel
individuals, couples groups and families, who are affected with mental disorders and seeks
counselling, crisis interventions or advocacy or therapy to cope up with the mental disorder.
They can educate the population who are unaware about the mental health and its consequences
(Betancourt et al. 2017).
Role of public and private sector healthcare setting are also of importance because
without the government-aided support, such major change cannot be implemented. Private sector
workplaces units should arrange workshops and campaigns of government officials so that a
large amount of population can be educated about the mental health, its consequences and the

5MENTAL HEALTH
legislative norms to overcome it (Steele and Cylus 2012). The employer and employees both
should follow the frame works of mental health provided by the UK government to help each
other in need. Role of public sector in this case is to provide the private and social service sector
with funding and a framework to implement the rules in their workplace. For the healthcare
service of people with mentally ill, the private sector healthcare unit should work as a partner of
public sector healthcare and set up norms to provide best quality healthcare without any
discrimination of price. As more than 12 million people of UK are covered under private
healthcare, the role of such institution is higher than any other stakeholder of mental health in
promoting mental healthcare.
Outcome 3
As previously discussed in the assignment, the competition and pressure to perform better
than others has affected the mental health of people around the world who are working or
studying in different institutions. The pressure to perform affect the mental and physical health
of the employees and hence, it is important for the employers to think about the unmet needs of
their employees to improve their mental health. The facts that need to take into consideration by
the employers are- the employees should be provided with flexible working hours, the managers
managing their work should be trainer properly with mental health training and the office
environment should be friendly and open to discuss about mental health issues of each other
without any hesitation (Kessler et al. 2017). Further, the employer should follow the “Equality”
norm in the workplace, and consider each of the employee’s point of view in the decision
making process and integrate the mental health framework norms and legislative rules in their
company policy for mental health promotion and wellbeing. The workplace should also contain
stress management and risk management procedures and for that, the managers should meet

6MENTAL HEALTH
every day to understand the problems any employee is facing (Baicker, Cutler and song 2017).
Facilitation of the best employee should be motivational to others rather than depressing them
and every employee should get a chance to perform better. Workplace should implement all the
policies regarding mental health such as quality improvement, trained Human Resource
manager, improved reach to psychotropic medicines, and financing. These will help to maintain
a healthy mental health system (Robbins, Ford and Tetrick 2012).
The care provided to a mentally ill person is very important and therefore, role of an
informal care provider becomes important for the scenario. Formal or paid service providers are
the prime care providers for the ill person however, if the primary care is not available at home
of care service unit, employment of informal care providers become important (Arno, Levine and
Memmott 2017). They need to be trained and experienced in providing care to a mentally unwell
person as they provide care in the home setting of the patient. Furthermore, the care facilities in
public and private sector healthcare are quite expensive and the social barriers also hinders the
service users to seek help from experts therefore, they opt for informal care providers. However,
once the care is no longer possible to be provided in home, formal caregivers take the charge to
provide healthcare to those needy people (McPherson et al. 2014).
Around the world, mental health issue affects more than 80 percent of population. Two in
every 10 person is suffering from either anxiety, depression, or drug or eating disorders. Every
country in the world is suffering from this disorder however, the UK government is trying hard
to combat the odds and create an environment where people are free to talk about their adverse
mental health openly. This essay discussed about the mental health and its consequences on the
life of different age group of people in UK. It discussed different contemporary issues that
affects the mental health of people and implemented the National Service framework norms to

7MENTAL HEALTH
achieve the quality healthcare in people. Later in the essay, the role of public and private sector
companies and healthcare sectors to team up with social services has been discussed elaborately.
The discussion of workplace equality and norms to maintain mental health in the wide
population has been mentioned.

8MENTAL HEALTH
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