BPS responds to government plans for a Major Conditions Strategy

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced in a Written Ministerial Statement plans to develop and publish a Major Conditions Strategy. The strategy will support the increasing number of people living with multiple conditions, including mental health.  

The six major conditions include:

• Cancers 
• Cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and diabetes 
• Chronic respiratory diseases 
• Dementia 
• Mental ill health 
• Musculoskeletal disorders.  

Sarb Bajwa, chief executive of the British Psychological Society, said:

"We understand the need for an overarching strategy to support the increasing number of people living with multiple major conditions, including mental health problems. However, the decision to scrap the ten year mental health and wellbeing plan promised in the summer of last year, and rolling up of mental health with other major health conditions is a deeply concerning step backwards for mental health, particularly at a time when services are in crisis.

"By placing mental health under the umbrella of the Major Conditions Strategy we are concerned that this will deny mental health the focus and detail it desperately requires, particularly given the demand we are experiencing and that mental health funding and support has lagged behind other services. If we are to truly to achieve parity with physical health then this must be a priority to meet the needs of people with multiple conditions, and those without, when demand for services continues to escalate.

"We are further concerned that the Major Conditions Strategy also appears to encompass health disparities that were due to be covered by the now shelved health disparities white paper. It is vitally important that the new Major Conditions Strategy provides sufficient focus on the inequalities that drive the causes of mental and physical ill-health, and detail how they will be addressed.

"We hope to hear further detail from the Secretary of State about how the Major Conditions Strategy will address these concerns."