Wales is experiencing a public mental health crisis. Data shows that the nation’s mental health has been in continuous decline every year since 2018-19, driven by a steep and worrying deterioration in the mental health of some of the country’s most vulnerable and marginalised communities.1
The upcoming Welsh Senedd election presents a crucial opportunity for action to address these trends. Here we set out our five key asks of the next Welsh Government.
We're calling on the Welsh Government to:
Invest in prevention
Take action on child poverty
Become a Nation of Sanctuary
Prioritise children and young people
Take action on inequalities
Investing in prevention
Wales’ limited mental health resource has historically focused on treatment and crisis intervention, with no dedicated expenditure category or data collection for spending on prevention.
Against a picture of worsening public mental health in Wales, this is not sustainable. Rising demand has placed pressure not just on public services and voluntary organisations but also on schools and workplaces to support the mental health needs of their populations and the level of demand for services they are presented with. Wales needs urgent, dedicated action to ensure that poor mental health is prevented as early as possible and to stop the cycle of inadequate prevention and rising need.
The next Welsh Government must commit to making prevention a central theme of Wales’ approach to mental health.
Introducing a Welsh Child Payment
Poverty is one of the most significant drivers of poor mental health, both in childhood and well into adulthood. We know that reducing the risk of children growing up in poverty is crucial to supporting good mental health and wellbeing.2
The next Welsh Government should introduce a Welsh Child Payment, drawing on the learning from the delivery of the Scottish Child Payment. This payment should be set at a rate high enough to provide substantive support towards the basic costs of living for low-income families in Wales.
Becoming a Nation of Sanctuary
People seeking sanctuary (also known as refugees and asylum seekers) experience unique challenges to their mental health and wellbeing and are at particular risk of developing long term mental health problems. Public Health Wales research has shown that people seeking sanctuary in Wales often struggle to access the health services they need, including emergency services, causing deep and preventable health inequalities.3
The incoming Welsh Government should restate its commitment to ensuring the wellbeing and safety of people seeking sanctuary in Wales and take immediate action to de-escalate the current hostile rhetoric targeted at people seeking sanctuary in Wales.4
Prioritising children and young people
Children and young people are at the forefront of Wales’ mental health crisis. One in six children and young people in Wales are estimated to have a mental health condition.5
Children and young people have distinct mental health needs to adults. Approaches that attempt to address children and young people’s mental health as part of a whole population approach often fail to recognise these needs and therefore struggle to take appropriate action to address them. Therefore, while we were glad to see children and young people recognised in Wales’ all-age Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan, this needs to lead into dedicated action on children and young people’s mental health.
Tackling inequalities
The inequalities associated with poor mental health are increasingly well-evidenced, with race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, geographic location and disability – among many other social factors – all influencing mental health outcomes.6
The Welsh Government must make improving mental health an objective of all policy, not just health policy, and embed an understanding of how inequalities in people’s lives influence mental health.