Patients Need Quicker Access to Therapy

There is no doubt that therapy is essential in treating mental illnesses, but one in five people with mental health disorders do not get the therapy they need from doctors. The mental health charity Mind says that those waiting less than three months from assessment to treatment were almost five times more likely to report that it helped them get back to work than those waiting between one and two years.

I was assessed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in 2005, with still no kind of therapy or "talking treatments"; I am on the waiting list, but I'm finding the wait highly frustrating! And, what is even more frustrating is that I am by no means the only one.

With all the recent government spending cutbacks the mental health sector is heavily feeling the strain, and this is sure to make therapies even more scarce. Doctors will be forced to prescribe even more medication than the are already doing so. Quality of treatment will suffer.

Access for patients to therapy is very slow, available therapies will be even harder to get hold of, and patients will continue to be pawned off with drugs, leaving their mental health to suffer as a consequence. What can we do?