Miliband to launch mental health taskforce

Ed Miliband is expected to announce he is launching a mental health taskforce today and call for more integration between health and social care.

In his first major speech since the Labour Party conference, Mr Miliband will say the taskforce will draw up a strategic plan for mental health across the country.

The Labour leader will call for more integration in the NHS between physical and mental health, as well as social care, by creating a system, which treats the patient as a whole.

‘Like sanitation, this is a massive public health challenge affecting millions,’ he is expected to say. ‘This time we can’t wait for greater crisis. We must act. It’s about changing the way we do things, so we save money in the long term.

‘The last Labour government began to transform mental health provision. It made well-respected, evidenced-based therapies available to more people than ever before. Taking mental health treatment into communities that had never received them before. We need to do all we can now to protect those programmes now.’