Statistics around mental illness remain disconcerting, with common mental health problems affecting an estimated 1 in 6 adults at any one time.¹

More than 4.5 million adults or around 10 per cent of all adults registered with a GP in England had a diagnosis of depression in 2017/18, up from 6 per cent in 2012/13. Within this is a wide regional variation, ranging from 5-15 per cent across England’s clinical commissioning groups.¹

The proportion of people with mental health conditions is higher in areas with more deprivation - poverty can be a cause or consequence of mental ill health. In addition, employment rates are drastically lower among people with mental illness compared to the general population (recorded at 49.0 per cent versus 76.2 per cent in June 2019).^1,2

Severe mental illness, which affects around 0.9 per cent of the population, is increasing with 550,000 GP patients having a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder or other psychoses in 2017/18. This is an increase of 50,000 since 2014/15.¹

Unfortunately, a downward trend in suicides has stalled. There were 6,507 registered suicides in the UK in 2018, an age-standardised rate of 11.2 deaths per 100,000 population. This rate is described as “significantly higher” than that in 2017 and is the first increase since 2013.³