UK fears looming mental health crisis

People are increasingly struggling with the mental strain of having lived through a pandemic, something the United Kingdom's National Health Service, or NHS, fears will only get worse.

Doctors believe people who focused on surviving the day-to-day physical and economic challenges posed by the novel coronavirus outbreak in recent months are likely to become more susceptible to a sort of post-traumatic shock, if and when the pandemic winds down.

They also fear a backlog of problems will surface among preexisting mental health patients, who deferred treatment or who could not access it at the height of the pandemic's disruption.

After a 30 percent short-term fall in referrals from general practitioners of people to mental health services, the latest predictions call for a rise in demand in the long-term, by as much as 20 percent, something that eventually will take the number of people being treated for mental health problems well past pre-pandemic levels.

The NHS Confederation, a membership body for organizations that commission and provide NHS services, has urged people needing help to come forward now, in order to avoid contributing to an anticipated surge for services in the coming months.

The organization added that mental health services need "intensive support and investment" if they are to cope with what is to come.

The confederation's mental health lead, Sean Duggan, told the BBC that, when novel coronavirus cases were at their peak, people stayed away from mental health services, just as they did from other parts of the NHS, for fear of catching the virus.

Service providers

"A&E (accident and emergency) numbers were down, GP (general practitioner) numbers were down. The same occurred in some of our mental health services," he said."The concern is, if you leave problems they can get worse."

As a result, mental health service providers are planning to be confronted with an increasing number of people with preexisting conditions that have deteriorated during lockdown, and a sharp rise in the number of new patients. Those new patients will include people who have had negative reactions to isolation, uncertainty about the future, fallout from increased drug and alcohol abuse, and problems resulting from a documented increase in domestic violence.

The challenge will be compounded by the fact that mental health service providers will need to operate safely just like all other parts of society, with social distancing measures in place and effective infection control, which will likely reduce capacity by between 10 and 30 percent.

NHS England has acknowledged the burgeoning problem and said "mental health needs may increase significantly".

It is aiming to make it easier for people to access a service called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, which is the main gateway for people with mild-to-moderate conditions and to which people can refer themselves.

NHS England has also called for more therapy and support to be created for people with severe mental illness.