The Coalition, austerity and mental health

In the United Kingdom, the Coalition government’s recent commitment to improving mental health provision masks the extent that their policies of austerity have already brought harm to those same services. Government-driven policies have led to significantly reduced funding within mental health, increasing pressure on a system that was already chronically under-resourced. Further, people who are experiencing mental distress, and mental health service users, have been especially vulnerable to the harms of the current austerity programme, including being at the sharp end of the assault on public services and welfare spending. This piece discusses the impact of austerity, exploring the effects of government policies and with a critical perspective of the dominant discourses around mental health. It argues that by exacerbating social inequality, government policies are also directly leading to worsening mental health in the United Kingdom.