What the hell else have they got to offer people?
In the fortnight after Prince Harry announced that he had suffered from mental health problems it’s emerged that Shepway has an above the average anti-depressant prescription rate within Kent. The average in Kent is one prescription rate per head of population. Shepway’s is 1.06. Thanet has the highest anti-depressant prescription rate in the whole of Kent and Ashford the lowest.
According to data analysis company Exasol, the national average for England as a whole, is 1.16. Shepway is below the national average but above the Kent Average. The data also reveals that there was a staggering 38% increase in anti-depressant prescriptions issued between 2011 – 16, with the number increasing from over 46 million to more than 64 million prescriptions in just 5 years and it is only set to climb even higher, experts in the mental health field believe.
The research has also revealed that the highest anti-depressant prescription rates are concentrated in the most deprived pockets of the county. It’s clear to me that the Government’s austerity programme; frozen wages; cuts in benefits and public service; increasing personal debt; coupled with the growing housing crisis; has had a massive impact upon peoples mental health forcing them to turn to anti-depressants to get by every day.
In 2016 GPs prescribed antidepressants, in England 64m times, an increase of more than 614% in 25 years across the whole of England.
There are a lack of opportunities, a lack of a sense of meaning and purpose in life. There are the financial consequences on families, consequent pressure on relationships; a toxic mix of how social and economic factors can put pressure on our mental health and psychological wellbeing.
Pressure on local authorities and civic organisations trying to operate without a well-functioning economy means there is a lack of services that can help people with mental health problems.
Incidentally, I don’t blame the GPs or the psychiatrists. What the hell else have they got to offer people?
The forthcoming KCC election gives you the choice to vote for candidates like me who will be focused on promoting and supporting sustainable and environmentally sensitive regeneration in Folkestone West and Shepway and who will be campaigning for the investment of more money to provide better housing, education and social care for the poorer and most deprived areas of Shepway and Folkestone West where people have been arrogantly taken for granted by UKIP, Labour, and the Tories for far too long.
I think these anti-depressant figures are an indictment on the divided and unfair society we live in. Its time to change it.
Vote Rylands Vote Independent May 4th 2017
Published & Promoted by Bryan Rylands Flat D Avenay Court Folkestone CT20 2LN
All the information above is my own and does not represent the views of the Shepwayvox Team who have kindly allowed me to use their blogsite.
The psychiatric services in East Kent have been cut to the bone, antidepressants are the last bastion in the service. People who have been looked after in the past are now being cut loose as their criteria and goalposts have been changed and it is simply shocking at how many people are falling through the net. Its a travesty.