Mental health only made it into all three main party manifestos for the first time in 2015. Two years later, and it would be impossible to imagine any serious political party missing it out. In fact, the first line on the ‘mental health gap’ in the Conservative manifesto suggests that they’ve already accomplished their aims: ‘It was Conservatives in government that gave parity of esteem to the treatment of mental health in the National Health Service.’
This is true – but also not very clear. It suggests mental health and physical health are now on an equal footing in the NHS. They are not.
The Coalition government introduced a mandate for the health service that called for measurable progress towards ‘true parity of esteem’ by March 2015. The 2017/18 Mandate reiterated this, calling for ‘measurable progress towards the parity of esteem for mental health enshrined in the NHS Constitution, particularly for those in vulnerable situations’.
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