Read: Levelling up mental health

Over the last year there has been a growing awareness of the importance of good mental health and wellbeing. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, run by the Mental Health Foundation, and the themes from it will resonate loudly with many people. How can we look after our own and others mental health? Are there conversations we should have about the things in our daily lives that affect wellbeing? Should we be doing more as individuals, within our communities or as a country to help people recover, maintain and improve their mental health? The answer to all of these must be yes.

The theme for this year is nature and for many this will feel particularly pertinent. Having spent much of the last 12 months in lockdown, many of us working from home have had the time to appreciate the natural world around us. But equally there are those who won’t have had that opportunity due to work or access to outdoor space.

The awareness that being outside amongst our natural environment brings health benefits has been known for over a century. However, we have been slow to incorporate nature as a tool in helping people recover, improve and maintain their mental health. As long ago as 1909 Walter Wright published ‘The Garden Week by Week’ in which, apart from gardening advice, he makes many mentions of the benefit of the outdoors and talks about how we should ‘drink deeply of May’s garden joys’ and that they hearten us ‘for the stern labours of life’. It is exactly from the stern labours of life that many people are now suffering.

The implications of the pandemic on mental health are starting to emerge. While many people have been keeping in touch with others virtually, the lack of human interaction will have led to increased levels of stress and feelings of isolation. 

There is no shortage of coverage on the importance of the economic benefits of levelling up but the importance of levelling up people’s mental and physical health is a vital part of achieving this.  A recovering economy needs healthy people and in the aftermath of Covid-19 addressing the country’s health inequalities cannot be left as an afterthought.

It has been shown that Covid-19 has disproportionately impacted certain communities and widened inequalities that already exist. Before the pandemic, statistics from GP surgeries across England from the House of Commons Library showed wide disparities in levels of depression. Of the 15 areas with the highest prevalence of depression, 12 were in the North West, two in the West Midlands and one in Yorkshire, whereas 12 of the 15 areas with the lowest prevalence were in London. 

While the immediate threats to our physical health still dominate the national agenda, a mental health epidemic could be just as damaging. The need to level up the public’s health is beyond doubt and long recognised by many governments but we need action that produces tangible results.  

Mental health inequalities often get overshadowed by physical health inequalities and they need to be addressed side by side. To improve the public’s mental health, consideration needs to be given to other social inequalities such as education, housing and the environment, access to open space and outdoor activities. We will not truly level up those people and communities left behind unless we also tackle the mental health inequalities that exist.

That’s why we identified good health and wellbeing as one of our 14 Levelling Up Goals. This sets out clear objectives for the UK’s levelling up challenge in the wake of the pandemic. 

By Rt Hon Anne Milton, former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health