Cost of mental ill health soars to £105bn per year

The annual cost of mental ill health in England has soared £28bn to £105.2bn, according to new research.

The economy loses more than £30bn a year from sickness absence and unemployment caused by mental ill health, the Centre for Mental Health calculated, while treating mental health problems cost the NHS and social care over £21bn a year.

But the majority of the financial burden of mental illness falls on patients and their families, the authors conclude, with the impact on quality of life costing £53.6bn.

Centre for Mental Health joint chief executive Bob Grove said: “Mental ill health carries a heavy cost, especially for those who experience mental health problems and their families. It costs businesses more than £1,000 for every person they employ and has an impact on spending in every government department.”

“Mental ill health is a fact of life. Every day, one in six of us experiences mental ill health, while one in 100 has a severe mental illness.”

The report calls for the government to take more action to treat and prevent mental illness.

“Providing good quality parenting support to people with young children, extending access to psychological therapy, early identification of distress at work, diverting offenders with mental health difficulties from custody and assisting people with severe mental health problems into paid work all make a massive difference to people’s lives and create both immediate and long-term savings to public finances and the wider economy,” the authors conclude.

Andrew McCulloch, chief executive, the Mental Health Foundation, said: “We need to revolutionise the way that we tackle mental health, to increase the focus on early intervention and preventative measures, rather than just treatment once an individual has reached crisis point. Previous analyses have shown that this approach would result in significant savings over the longer term, in terms of productivity, health service costs, and the burden on other public services such as the criminal justice system.”

But despite spiralling economic, welfare and quality of life costs, mental health services are being hit by cuts, with frontline services reduced and NHS units shut down or threatened with closure. A third of GPs say mental health services are most at risk of cuts, while 58% believe mental health services already lack resources, according to a recent survey of 500 GPs by the charity Rethink.

From April 2011, NHS Oxfordshire will cut funding for mental health services by £400,000 to 1.7m a year. Oxfordshire-based charity Restore, will find out in December whether they will lose some or all of the £600 000 support they depend on each year.

Benedict Leigh, chief executive of Restore said the uncertainty was bad for staff and service users. “We might close altogether or continue in a reduced form,” he added. “Money from the PCT represents 60% of our funding. We employ 30 people across Oxfordshire and a lot of the help we do is around helping people get work. This bears a long-term saving for the Exchequer in saving benefits and welfare costs. Cutting services at a local level is a short-term gain with long-term costs.”

Julia Lamb, spokeswoman from Mind said cutting services was would not save money.

“Decommissioning mental health services and reducing staff numbers is a false economy” she said. “At a time when jobs are going and budgets are being slashed, there is a greater need for mental health care.”