• Public Health England, in partnership with the NHS, launched Every Mind Matters, a new way of empowering people to manage and improve their mental health.
• The Every Mind Matters resources will promote preventative steps people can take to promote good mental health and manage common concerns and prevent these escalating
• This includes the launch of a new interactive tool which enables people to generate personalised action plan to help people introduce self-care into their daily routine
• Survey shows more than eight in ten (83%) people have experienced early signs of poor mental health including feeling anxious, stressed, having low mood or trouble sleeping in the last 12 months.
Public Health England (PHE), in partnership with the NHS, launched Every Mind Matters, a new resource to help people take simple steps to look after their mental health, improve their mental wellbeing and support others.
Good mental health benefits our overall health and wellbeing, is associated with a range of better outcomes for people of all ages and backgrounds, including improved physical health and life expectancy. However, a new PHE survey shows that more than eight in ten (83%) people have experienced early signs of poor mental health including feeling anxious, stressed, having low mood or trouble sleeping in the last 12 months.
Every Mind Matters highlights that while these can be a natural response to life’s challenges, they can become more serious if people don’t take action – and many wait too long, or are unaware of the steps that they can take to manage their own mental health.
Over a quarter (27%) of people who experienced signs of poor mental health waited at least six months before taking steps to manage their mental health, with three quarters (74%) of those who waited this long wishing they had done so sooner.
The new platform, which has been endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RGCP), will enable people to create a personalised action plan recommending a set of self-care actions to deal with stress, boost mood, improve sleep and feel in control.
This new resource is available for the public and for GPs to advise their patients to use.
The NHS will also promote Every Mind Matters to its one-million plus workforce.
Every Mind Matters aims to improve mental health literacy and empower people to take simple, proactive steps to boost their mental health as part of their daily routines, just as with physical health. Every Mind Matters recommends a range of evidence-based self-care actions that individuals can try to deal with stress, boost mood, improve sleep and feel in control – and to prevent issues from becoming more serious or escalating into a clinical issue.
People are now being urged to create a free, personalised action plan on the Every Mind Matters website. The new, interactive tool will enable people to generate an action plan based on their situation and use it as an ongoing support tool.
The launch follows eighteen months of planning and local and regional piloting, developed with clinical and academic experts, national mental health charities and input from people with experience of poor mental health. Clinically-assured by the NHS, Every Mind Matters is evidence-based and it shows people how to build simple changes into their daily lives – such as reframing unhelpful thoughts, breathing exercises and increasing physical activity.
All of these have well evidenced impact on improving and maintaining good mental health, which can help people to get more out of life, feel and function better, have more positive relationships and manage difficult times – now and in the future.
The Every Mind Matters website also hosts a series of newly curated resources including expert advice on how to spot the signs of common mental health concerns and things we can do to help ourselves and importantly, when and how to seek further support.
By improving mental health literacy among the public, Every Mind Matters aims to help individuals to stay mentally healthy and encourage them to seek help more quickly when they do need support.
Every Mind Matters is backed by a coalition of mental health charities and champions, including Mind, Mental Health First Aid England, Time to Change, Heads Together and the Samaritans.
Duncan Selbie, chief executive of PHE, said: “Our health is affected by our circumstances, including having a job, friends and a roof over our heads. Anxiety, stress, low mood and trouble sleeping can affect everyone. Every Mind Matters aims to help people to better handle life’s ups and downs.”
Simon Stevens, NHS chief executive, said: “Over the past few years there’s been a profound sea change in public attitudes and awareness about mental health. So at the same time the NHS is expanding the availability of specialist mental health support and treatment, people are increasingly interested in practical steps they can take themselves to prevent and manage common mental health problems such as anxiety, stress and depression. That’s where Every Mind Matters comes in, as a helpful complement to the work of NHS mental health teams and services.”
Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, said: “We all have mental health just as we all have physical health, and it can vary from good to poor. Most people know how important it is to look after their physical health and more and more people are understanding the need to look after their mental health as well, but lots of us don’t know where to start. “That’s why Mind has been helping develop Every Mind Matters, to empower people with the tools they need to deal with everyday causes of stress, anxiety, low mood and trouble sleeping. Taking proactive steps like increasing physical activity and connecting with others can help prevent these issues developing into more serious mental health problems further down the line. At a time when only a third of people with a mental health problem get access to any kind of help and support, it’s important to do whatever we can to help people take steps to stay well and try and prevent mental health problems developing in the first place.
“We hope that this campaign will help increase public awareness of how we can all stay as mentally well as possible.”
A special film to promote Every Mind Matters has been written by Richard Curtis and directed by Rankin, narrated by Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It shows how we can all look after our mental health and caused a ‘roadblock’ TV moment when it aired on 21 October.
The powerful film features a range of people whose lives have been affected by poor mental health, including a cast of well-known faces: Gillian Anderson, Glenn Close, Freddie Flintoff, Professor Green, Davina McCall, Jordan Stephens, Will Young, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Nadiya Hussain, Rob Beckett, Katie Piper, Sarah Taylor, Joe Sugg and Alastair Campbell.
Mental illness is the single largest cause of disability in the UK and the cost to the economy is estimated to be around £105 billion annually. Physical and mental health are closely linked – people with severe and prolonged mental illness die on average 15 to 20 years earlier than other people, which is one of the greatest health inequalities in England.
The campaign delivers on the commitment made in the NHS Long Term Plan, to give equal priority to tackling mental and physical health problems and empower people to take more control.
For further information about the personalised action plan tool and other Every Mind Matters resources, visit: www.everymindmatters.co.uk
Photo credits: Rankin (with the exception of Jo Whiley).
