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Call for 'man-friendly' mental health services
07/11/16 .
News
The Men’s Health Forum has called for greater access to mental health services outside so-called ‘normal’ opening hours.
The demand follows a Mental Health Foundation research report which showed that men facing mental health challenges are less likely than women to seek medical support and less likely to tell friends and family.
A third of women disclosed a mental health problem to a friend or loved one within a month compared to just a quarter of men. More than a third of men (35%) waited more than 2 years (or indeed never) disclosed a mental health problem to a friend or family member. This compared to 25% or women.
Welcoming the research Men’s Health Forum CEO Martin Tod said it shows that ‘we still need to do much more to encourage men to get help.’
Stigma at work
Martin stressed that change wasn’t just down to men. ‘Services need to change too. One thing that would make a difference is making sure men can access confidential mental health services out of hours so that they can get help without having to take time off work.’
Men’s Health Forum research shows that 34% of working-age men would be embarrassed or ashamed to take time off work for mental health issue such as anxiety or depression compared to only 13% for a physical injury. Amongst men with existing mental health problems, the figure was 46%. Over half of men with mental health problems – 52% – were concerned that their employer would think worse of them.
Martin said: ‘when a recent report from the EHRC showed that men can end up earning 42% less if they have mental health issues, who can blame them for being concerned?
‘We have repeatedly heard from men that they are more likely to seek help if they know that that help is going to be confidential and, if necessary, anonymous. Mental health services need to change to reflect that.’
Find out more:
- Our manifesto for male mental health
- All our mental health statistics
- Our publication How To Make Mental Health Services Work For Men
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The Men’s Health Forum need your support It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking. In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to. It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for. We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing. Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.
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