Attitudes towards mental health sufferers going backwards in Britain, study shows
Research led by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London warns that public attitudes to mental health have seen their first decline in over 10 years.
Stigma against mental health conditions and those who suffer from them is growing in Britain according to research being released by charity Mind as part of its Big Mental Health Report 2025.
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Prof Claire Henderson, who worked on the study, said it showed that although people’s attitudes towards specific individuals with mental illness had improved, their attitudes towards mental illness generally had declined “back to baseline”.
The data strongly suggest that changes in attitudes have been driven by a decline in trust in community mental health support rather than an increase in exclusionary or prejudicial attitudes.
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One in 10 people are reportedly unwilling to live next to someone who has been mentally ill even if they have recovered according to the mental health charity Mind.
The number of people in England who are frightened of living near people with mental health problems has nearly doubled to one in seven..
The results found that only 63% of people were comfortable about mental health services operating in their community instead of in psychiatric units, down from 70% in 2015.
The figures also showed that 14% of people were frightened of those with poor mental health living in their neighbourhoods, up from 8% in 2017, while 16% of people believed mental health services “downgraded” a neighbourhood, up from 10% in 2019.
Dr Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, said: “The rise in stigma is alarming. We have seen a change in language, people telling us their family’s attitudes are changing, as well as increasing narratives around benefit claimants and some very difficult and terrible instances of violence linked to mental illness – it feels like a lot of things have come home to roost.”
The findings from Mind’s report also found there were 1.66 million people waiting for community mental health care in England and Wales in the third quarter of 2024-25.
More than 35,000 young people have been waiting for over two years for support and yet youth service funding in England having dropped by 73% since 2010, and facing growing demand.
Mind go on to warn that mental health makes up over 20% of the burden of disease in England, yet receives less than 10% of NHS spending.
According to the Centre for Mental Health, mental illness health related expenditure cost England around £300 billion a year, which is roughly double the size of the annual NHS budget.
It also said that 1 in 5 children and young people currently have a mental health problem, but only a third were able to access treatment in England last year.