Dr Mary McCarthy: Time to give mental health the funds it needs

With every London marathon, there is a host of eager runners who take to the streets in support of their respective charities. This year, the runners sporting blue head bands representing the charity Heads Together gained a significant amount of media attention and support.

As part of their much publicised mental health campaigning, Princes William and Harry, as well as from the Duchess of Cambridge, came out in support of the charity.

Both Prince William and Prince Harry have recently told of their shock and sorrow following the sudden death of their mother in the car crash in Paris. To lose a parent at a young age is a traumatic experience.

Prince William spoke of the effect that the death of his mother continues to have on him whilst Prince Harry detailed the chaos surrounding part of his twenties as the impact of the trauma surfaced as mental health problems years later.

Bereavement trauma in childhood is a potent trigger for problems with mental health and young men are especially vulnerable.

Suicide is the single biggest killer of men between the ages of 20 to 45 years and, unlike the rate in women, the rate of suicide in men has been increasing over the last few years and is now three times that of young women.

Often young men may not recognise they are depressed and don’t seek the appropriate help. They may report aches and pains and show signs of reluctance to go to work or lack of interest in hobbies and sports.

They are less likely to talk about their problems as there is still a significant stigma attached to this as many consider talking about their issues to be “unmanly”.

Unfortunately, this is one of the contributing factors to why suicide rates is the highest amongst young men as they have a tendency to further isolate themselves as a result.

It takes a lot of courage to speak out in the way that Prince Harry did. Depression is non-discriminatory and is capable of impacting those in even the most wealthiest and privileged positions.

When people come to me with symptoms of depression, there is a very definite sense of them feeling trapped and a thought that they will never be capable of being happy again. Rather than looking forward, there is a tendency to ruminate as they feel like the situation is impossible to escape.

We need urgent investment and protection of our mental health services as the first to be cuts in times of austerity.

The government promised that mental health would get more attention, more funding and more resources but this has been slow to materialise.

Indeed, only recently five Clinical Commissioning Groups were reported to have their mental health budgets cut by millions. As a result of cuts to services in some areas, we are seeing a significant rise in the number of out of area placements for young people having to travel long distances to receive the treatment they need.

The royals have given this subject the welcome recognition it deserves. It is now the governments turn to match rhetoric with investment and give mental health services the funding they so desperately need.