Category: “Mental Health”

A nice cheery start to the week. Not just any old week, but Dying Matters Awareness Week. Did you not know? It kicks off tonight with the Inaugural Dying Matters Lecture in London, delivered by Professor David Cunningham, and followed by a panel discussion chaired by me, with publisher Gail Rebuck and her daughter Georgia [...]

In 25 years, Comic Relief and its famous Red Nose have helped to raise more than £600million, money which has been used to help millions of people both in the UK and Africa. On a trip to Ghana earlier this year I met some of the most recent beneficiaries, as the country struggles to address [...]

With thanks to South London and Maudsley psychiatrist Jonathan Campion, here is a summary of the report I referred to in my debate with Oliver James in yesterday’s Observer. This statistic that 23percent of our health burden comes from mental disorder, compared with 16percent for cancer and cardiovascular, needs to become as well known and [...]

Here is a copy of the debate in today’s Observer between me and psychotherapist Oliver James, arguing for and against major employers providing onsite psychiatric support for their staff. Alastair Campbell – I was really pleased to see the headline proclaiming “MPs to get mental health clinic in parliament amid rise in depression and anxiety”. [...]

A while back I posted a guest blog from Lucy Rocca, who with a friend had set up http://www.soberistas.com a website aimed at helping people like her, who had had a drink problem, and were now trying to stay dry by celebrating being dry. Today I post another brilliant piece from Lucy on life with [...]

The King’s Fund has launched a debate about the future of health and social care, called ‘Time to think Differently.’ They asked me to write a piece on mental health. To find out more about the King’s Fund debate, visit here. Meanwhile here is the piece I have done for them… So it is time [...]

It’s flattering I suppose when people notice … that I have not been blogging much. It is becoming a new year tradition, like stomach upsets, broken resolutions, sacked football managers and tiny FA Cup crowds. A year ago it was because I was going through a bad bout of depression. This year it was because [...]

Modesty and humility being big parts of what make me such a likeable and popular character, I very rarely blow my own trumpet on here. But something happened last night which leaves me with little option. I had been doing a discussion with the lovely Delia Smith at the BMA, her explaining why she does [...]

Unconnected to Leveson, out of the blue comes an email from a former RAF pilot accusing David Cameron of betrayal over his claim that former servicemen and women will not lose out as a result of welfare changes. Betrayal is a powerful theme, and the numbers who feel it are swelling. Environmentalists who were promised [...]

Slowly, progress is being made on the mental health front. The government has committed to parity of treatment between mental and physical illnesses. Ed Miliband made an important speech recently making clear the need for government and society to change its attitudes to mental illness, not least because of the social and economic costs of [...]