Mental health is something that has become a wider conversation in recent years.

Perhaps owing to the increase in those struggling. I have struggled, my friends have and you reading this likely have too.

If you don’t, you probably know someone who does.

The figures are stark. One in four people are estimated to have a mental health issue, from depression, to anxiety, to addiction, PTSD and bipolar.

We live in a challenging world and with 24 hours news cycles mean we are only one push notification away from learning of the most recent tragedy either from here or around the world.

People on low incomes or social security are anxiety ridden dreading the brown envelope coming through the door.

The rising cost of living compounded by Liz Truss’s ridiculous budget leaves nothing but depression for many across Bury South facing nothing but an uphill battle to pay their mortgages.

As we have seen from public figures, mental health doesn’t do inequality, even those of great wealth and stature can be hit by it.

What is concerning for me is the amount of our children contracting mental health issues as well as those who are receiving help such as those at Edenfield aren’t being properly looked after.

I am still pushing for a full public inquiry from the government.

This is why mental health provision will be the cornerstone of a Labour legacy when we are in government.

In government Labour will:

  • Guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it, ensuring that patients start receiving appropriate treatment – not simply an initial assessment of needs – within a month of referral.
  • Recruit 8,500 new staff so that one million additional people can access treatment every year by the end of Labour’s first term in office.
  • Putting an open access mental health hub for children and young people in every community, providing early intervention, drop-in services.
  • Providing specialist mental health support in every school, so that they can support pupils and resolve problems before they escalate. This plan would see a full-time mental health professional in every secondary school and a part time professional in every primary school.
  • Improving service quality, bringing in the first ever long-term, whole-government plan for improving mental health outcomes, making early-intervention a reality, and broadening the range of services to those with severe mental health illnesses.
  •  Giving mental health its fair share of funding, pledging that NHS spending on mental health will never fall, and a fair share of mental health funding every time new funding is allocated to the NHS.

This will be possible by finally closing tax loopholes used by Rishi Sunak and his wealthy mates.

I want local groups like Andy’s Man Club and the creative living centre to be the norm not the exception to the rule.

It’s great we’re talking about mental health but if services aren’t there the conversation become pointless. It must and will change under Labour.