Suicide Prevention Minister Appointed

[wolf63]

I read this earlier on the BBC site and couldn't make up my mind if it is a good idea or not. Surely financing mental health services should be the first step - in an attempt to prevent people from getting so ill that suicide seems like a good plan.

What do you think?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45804225

World Mental Health Day: 10 October 2018.

[Peter Pedant]

Mental health services are pretty terrible in this country
if a minister can improve them - then all power to her elbow !

[fiction-factory]

Mental health services already receive finance, so I assume you mean more finance.
Hopefully the appointment is in andication that the government wants to see improvements made in this area. Of course there is a danger that it is just a gesture so they can say "oh yes, we have shown we take it very seriously"

[nailit]

//Hopefully the appointment is in andication that the government wants to see improvements made in this area//
Soundbites!

[Baldric]

/// Theresa May said the appointment of Health Minister Jackie Doyle-Price to the new role will help tackle the stigma surrounding suicide ///
I am in no way being funny here, but after a statement like that, what are they trying to do, make it acceptable? very badly worded imo.

[nailit]

Is there not a stigma around suicide then Baldric?

[wolf63]

Baldric - it sounds as if the whole idea has been very badly thought out.

nailit - I hope that they do something positive and don't just use this as a vote winner.

FF - yep, extra money. I know from reading our local press that there have been wards shut at our local psychiatric hospital and people have to travel to the next city.

PP - I think that the main problem with mental health issues is that they are not measurable.

Bloods can be taken, urine samples, blood pressure etc for physical ailments. But the area between our lugs is not always so easy to examine and interpret.

It is always difficult to answer the question "How are you feeling today" - what do you compare it against?

[douglas9401]

We know they mean the stigma involved in discussing suicide, not the act itself.

[nailit]

//nailit - I hope that they do something positive and don't just use this as a vote winner//

Have these things ever been anything else?
Same as T. Mays talk about the end of austerity. Tell me that when theres no foodbanks left, no bedroom tax, when I don't give a pound or two to people sleeping on the pavement!
Some people are so thick as to believe this sh,,t!

[fiction-factory]

>Tell me that when theres no foodbanks left, no bedroom tax, when I don't give a pound or two to people sleeping on the pavement!

Okay, I'll bite. there's no bedroom tax. There has been a need for foodbanks and there have been rough sleepers for years- from decades before Theresa May became PM.
Certainly mental health issues seem so much more of a problem now though- maybe it was a hidden problem 30 years ago. It's only 10 years since I read problems had diminished following the removal of lead from petrol.
I hope the appointment is a sign of a real commitmnet but I do have doubts- it may indeed turn out to have been just a gesture/soundbite, but we should give it a chance

[nailit]

//Okay, I'll bite. there's no bedroom tax. There has been a need for foodbanks and there have been rough sleepers for years//

Don't bother biting then.
I'll live in reality while you live in you're dream world.

[jennyjoan]

////"How are you feeling today" - what do you compare it against?

Usually Wolf - they ask "one to ten" - one being good and ten being bad. flummoxes me all the time.

[TonyV]

IMO mental heath resource in NHS gets very little of its budget spent in this area, when my wife was in charge of a mental health ward, often at night police would arrive with a patient, take the hand cuffs of and say "all over to you"

[Mamyalynne]

The appointment does rather read like more fine words, but it's a darn sight better than them saying - we give up and can't do anymore.

I can't and won't compare my periods of mental instability to those on here who have ongoing issues - if more can be done then I pray that it is.

We definitely need more awareness even though it's a bit better than it was.

[Baldric]

/// Is there not a stigma around suicide then Baldric? ///

Yes, of course there is, but if you don't understand what I'm saying, there really is no point in my continuing tbf.

[Ken4155]

According to this morning's Daily Mirror, within hours of her appointment, the Minister for Suicide Prevention, Jackie Doyle-Price, was slammed for comments she made in 2014. When asked whether she would defect to the far right, she replied, "I would sooner jump off Beachy Head than join UKIP." Wonder if she now wishes she hadn't been so flippant in her reply?