Much concern is being expressed over the state of mental health care in England with a strident call going out for better access to talking therapy treatment and crisis care as many people are getting no help or inadequate care. 
Mental health care was so poor and underfunded that ‘lives are being ruined’, a report by a taskforce set up by NHS England said.
Among its recommendations was improving access to talking therapies, the BBC reported, adding that ministers and health bosses have immediately accepted the findings, promising to treat a million more people by 2020 with £1bn extra to tackle the problem.
This is to come out of the £8.4bn the government has promised to the health service during this Parliament and comes on top of extra money already announced for children’s services.
The BBC quoted David Cameron as saying the plan would help put ‘mental and physical healthcare on an equal footing’. He said he wanted to see all those that were struggling to ‘get the help and support’ they needed.
NHS England said the new strategy will help to ensure that an extra 600,000 people to get access to talking therapies for conditions such as anxiety, depression and stress.
Paul Farmer, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, who led the taskforce, said the strategy should act as a ‘landmark moment’ for mental health care, which was currently ‘very patchy’.
While the extra funding was crucial, he added that some stigma around mental illness ‘still prevails, right the way inside the health service, as it does in society’, and this needed to change.
Life throws many trials our way, says the NCH and while some people manage, more and more people are showing signs of over-anxiety. This leads to stress, which can make a significant impact on the quality of life and wellbeing.
Hypnotherapy will allow a person suffering from stress or anxiety to talk about their feelings and then the two will work together to reach the desired life goals. This can be done using a variety of therapy techniques and should not require more than six sessions – depending on the individual situations.
After sessions with a hypnotherapist, the client may feel more confident and more relaxed in situations that were previously daunting.
“People who have experienced side effects of anxiety such as insomnia, find that they are sleeping much better and as a result are able to work more effectively,” says the NCH.
“It is as if hypnotherapy unlocks the potential you have to break free of negative thought patterns, and to react more positively and more confidently to situations in your life that may have previously made you anxious.”
Many NCH therapists are registered with the Complementary & Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) which the General Medical Council recognises as a mark of quality service and doctors can refer patients to hypnotherapy practitioners on the CNHC Register.