We were all excited to see the launch of PHE’s major new Mental Health campaign, ‘Every Mind Matters’ on 7th October, supported by the Royal Family and numerous celebrities.
The campaign supports everyone to feel more confident in taking action to look after their mental health and wellbeing – advocating a range of self-care actions to promote good mental health and tackle common problems, as well as signposting wider resources and services for those in greater need. Through use of the campaign’s content and navigation tool, our aim is for 1 million adults to be better informed and equipped to look after their own mental health and support others.
It is increasingly recognised that taking care of our mental health is as important as maintaining good physical health. A new PHE survey reveals more than 8 in ten (83%) people have experienced early signs of poor mental health including feeling anxious, stressed, having low mood or trouble sleeping in the last 12 months. While these can be a natural response to life’s challenges, they can become more serious if people wait too long before taking action.
Over a quarter (27%) of people who experienced signs of poor mental health waited at least 6 months before taking action to manage their mental health, with three quarters (74%) of those who waited this long wishing they had acted sooner.
Our health is affected by our circumstances, including having a job, friends and a roof over our heads. Anxiety, stress, low mood and trouble sleeping can affect everyone. Every Mind Matters aims to help people to better handle life’s ups and downs. The new platform, which has been endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RGCP), enables people to create a personalised action plan recommending a set of self-care actions to deal with stress, boost mood, improve sleep and feel in control.
The launch followed 18 months of planning and local and regional piloting, developed with clinical and academic experts, national mental health charities and input from people with experience of poor mental health. Clinically-assured by the NHS, Every Mind Matters is evidence-based and it shows people how to build simple changes into their daily lives – such as reframing unhelpful thoughts, breathing exercises and increasing physical activity.
All of these have well evidenced impact on improving and maintaining good mental health, which can help people to get more out of life, feel and function better, have more positive relationships and manage difficult times – now and in the future.
Every Mind Matters is backed by a coalition of mental health charities and champions, including Mind, Mental Health Foundation, MHFA England, Samaritans, Heads Together, Centre for Mental Health, Rethink, Time to Change, NSUN, What Works Centre for Wellbeing and Good Thinking.
This new resource is available for the public and for use by health care professionals as they support their patients. The NHS is also promoting Every Mind Matters to improve workforce wellbeing.
We hope that this campaign will help increase public awareness of how we can all stay as mentally well as possible. I would wholly recommend it as a tool to signpost to. You can find details at www.everymindmatters.co.uk.
Linda Hindle, Deputy Chief AHP Officer for England
If you are interested in finding out more:
For more information and resources, go to the ‘Every Mind Matters’ website.
Find out more about the ways in which Orthoptists are engaged in public health here.