Before we consider the mental health landscape of a post-pandemic UK, it is helpful for us to consider citizen well-being prior. Between 1993 and 2014, the number of individuals experiencing common mental health problems rose by 20%. One in ten children aged five to fifteen years were, between 1999 and 2014, recognised to have a mental health issue. This figure rose to one in nine in 2017, and then to one in eight in 2018. In 2009, 20% of the English population was understood to have a mental health problem. As of 2018, it was believed to be 25%.

The reason this background is important to recognise is because mental health issues have been rising gradually over the past twenty years, placing greater pressure on healthcare services within the UK. In 2018, mental health issues occupied about 23% of NHS activity, despite receiving only 11% of funding. There was a preexisting disparity between the support being provided and the number of those in need.

Then, in 2020, COVID began to affect the population.

Over the course of only a single year, mental health quality plummeted within the UK. Mind reported that, in April 2021, one in three people considered their mental health to have gotten much worse, a figure that doubled from twelve months earlier. Coping mechanisms, such as self-harm, rose, as did levels of inequality, with those living in areas of poverty experiencing increasingly severe and complex mental health issues. Clinical depression within the student population rose from 30 to 44%, with levels of anxiety reaching 21% from 12%.. Nearly half of all young people felt rarely felt optimistic about their future and mental health issues in children have risen to one is six.

This, of course, is not to say that the international health crisis or the resulting lockdowns are the sole reason for such dramatic increases in mental ill-health. Reviewing information from years prior to 2020 demonstrates that other factors were having an effect. Commonly recognised factors are social media usage, climate change concerns, cost of living challenges, and developing levels of social disadvantage.  

We mentioned that in 2018, mental health occupied 23% of NHS activity and yet received only 11% of funding. Now, NHS mental health services receive 13% of funding, which is a positive increase but falls vastly short of the increase in NHS mental health activity, which now sits at 28%.

The motivation to improve mental health support within the UK should be immediately clear, since it is needed not only to improve the well-being of individuals but also to prevent the development of mental health issues into more severe disorders. However, there are many other reasons why access to mental health services and the support they provide should be improved.

Mental health issues lead to a rise in physical health conditions, increasing the pressure on other NHS services. Those with mental health conditions are, for example, three times more likely to attend A&E and the London Ambulance Service told of a dramatic increase in suicides from 2019 to 2020. Mental ill-health also affects the economy and, while the NHS currently plans to spend around £15.56bn on mental health services, the estimated financial cost of mental health in the UK sits at just under £118bn.
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