NHS England has announced its first mental health support service for people in crises.
Adults and children in England will now be able to call NHS 111 and access mental wellbeing help in the same way as people use the service for non-emergency physical ailments.
Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s director for mental health, said: ‘We know that record numbers of people are suffering with their mental health, and we want to ensure that when people are in crisis, they have easy, straightforward access to the support they need.’
She added that with the launch of the service, the UK ‘will become one of the first countries in the world to offer a free universal package of support to people through one easy to access phone line’.
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Local health systems previously had their own separate mental health phone lines, which took about 200,000 calls per month. The change will see the first line of mental health treatment brought under the remit of NHS England, and staff handling the calls will be able to organise face-to-face community support for patients or guide them to other services.
Stephen Kinnock, the minister of state for care, said: ‘As part of our plans to help fix the broken health system, we want to ensure we give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health.
‘For the first time, there is one number you can call whether you are feeling physically unwell or worried about your mental health to access the support you might need.’