Awareness is all well and good but not good enough when adequate services aren't in place or accessible for many people. It's not good enough when services turn people away, even when in crisis, despite them asking for help. It's not good enough when people are forced to wait 18 months for psychological therapy. It's not good enough when services refuse to even accept referrals for people with certain conditions (NHS Grampian spring to mind). It's not good enough when people have been harmed by the services that are supposed to be there to help. By all means raise awareness but awareness alone just isn't enough. We need action. What we do need is reform of our mental health services, attitudinal change from staff, greater sociopolitical awareness within our healthcare system especially around the impacts of austerity, we need services not to be a postcode lottery...
