Thousands of new mental health nurses won’t reach the men who need them most
Date: Wednesday 16 Aug 2017
By Simon Gunning
12 men take their own lives every day in the UK
As I followed the news that Jeremy Hunt has announced 21,000 new mental healthcare jobs in the NHS, the latest numbers from our helpline service hit my inbox. In June, 5,866 people needed to access services run by the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), the UK’s leading charity dedicated to preventing male suicide. Demand is up 40 per cent on last year and in 12 months we have actively prevented 414 suicides. Given that 12 men take their own lives every day in the UK, these numbers come as no surprise. Men are three times more likely than women to take their own lives in the UK, and suicide remains the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45.
The reasons are many and varied. CALM’s research shows that whilst 67 per cent of females tell someone about going through depression, only 55% of males do the same. There is a disconnect between men facing challenges in life and relentless societal pressure to ‘man up’ – whatever that means – and carry on coping. Many of the men who come to CALM for support do so not because they identify as having a mental health problem, but rather some sort of life problem. Divorce, exams, redundancy, failure in the boardroom, failure in the bedroom. Some men will never set foot in a GP’s surgery to talk about having a miserable time, or will wait far too long before they do. All of which leads me to fear that increasing the number of mental healthcare workers in the NHS is masking a bigger problem.
Many of the men who come for support do so not because they identify as having a mental health problem, but rather some sort of life problem
Looking outside the clinical setting How can extra nurses help the men (or women) who don’t know they can even see a nurse? Alongside the extra maternal mental healthcare, who’s looking after the dads who are at equal risk of suicide* in that difficult first year of parenthood? Will Hunt’s promise of extra training for nurses take into account where men are and what they need to hear? Unfortunately, I’m not sure any of these men, young or old, who need CALM in their life will notice the effect of more mental healthcare staff. We need to look outside the clinical setting and into schools, into the workplace, and into our immediate support groups so that help can reach the men who need it most, on their own turf and on their own terms. More staff may mean boots on the ground, but I don’t want my kids to grow up in a society where your gender can be a death sentence. Jeremy Hunt, I invite you to join us in the trenches.
*Research conducted by CALM in 2016 showed that exactly the same proportion of men and women report feeling suicidal in the first year of parenthood (3%)
Simon Gunning is CEO of the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)