Policy watch
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/mhsi.2010.0616 |
| Published date | 09 November 2010 |
| Date | 09 November 2010 |
| Pages | 3-6 |
| Author | Simon Lawton‐Smith |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Mental Health and Social Inclusion • Volume 14 Issue 4 • November 2010 © Pier Professional Ltd 3
10.5042/mhsi.2010.0616
But alongside a vision of individuals being seen
as more and more responsible for their own health,
the report suggests that unhealthy behaviours will be
penalised:
‘Faced with the failure of persuasion and
escalating health costs, policy makers will
increasingly restrict and even prohibit
unhealthy behaviours. They will have the
support of a voluble New Puritan group.’
This ‘New Puritanism’ can perhaps be seen in recent
proposals that drug addicts – many of whom will
have comorbid mental health problems – should lose
their benefits if they refuse medical treatment, as well
as the rapidly growing use of community treatment
orders for certain mental health patients, which impose
conditions not only around treatment but also around
lifestyle. But this raises interesting questions. If you
are to penalise obesity, for example, how might you
distinguish between someone who puts on excess
weight as a result of eating too many burgers, and
someone who puts on weight as a result of taking
prescribed antipsychotic medication? Whatever your
thoughts, this is a report worth reading in the context
of the wider health policy debate.
Current consultations
So, back to my in-tray, and those consultation
documents. Topping the pile is the English
Department of Health’s (2010a) NHS Outcomes
I love the summer holidays, and August in particular.
But this is not because I have been lounging
indolently on a sunny beach or hurling myself
down the ski slopes at St Moritz. I have been in the
office. Hardly any meetings in the diary, no talks
at conferences, very few phone calls and a 50%
reduction in my usual email traffic. Bliss. And all this
means it is the best month of the year for tackling the
content of my in-tray.
Policy activity, to some extent, grinds to a halt
when Ministers and Parliamentarians head for the
beaches and mountains. But if it is not there overtly in
daily departmental announcements splashed all over
the newspapers, it does not mean that it has gone
away. This is because governments have a habit of
issuing policy consultations before they break up for
the holidays, setting deadlines for when they return.
A new puritanism?
But before I tell you what is in my in-tray, I will
mention a rather interesting report produced by
Friends Provident and the Future Foundation (2010)
called, simply, Health and Wellbeing. This report
suggests that the principle driver of change in health
care over the next 10 years will be our ageing
society, with a gradual shifting of the burden of care
from the state to the individual. We can already see
this happening in the debates around how to pay
for future social care (especially to deal with the
immense future cost of dementia), personalisation
and self-management.
Policy watch
POLICY
Simon Lawton-Smith
Head of Policy, Mental Health Foundation, UK
Abstract
A quarterly review of recent and forthcoming developments within mental health policy.
Key words
Mental health policy; Public mental health; Well-being
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