Campaign

Mental Health Rights

#123GP

It's the system that needs fixing, not people

The #123GP campaign is a network of families bereaved by suicide, people with direct experience of mental health services and their carers. We are determined to ensure that what happened to us - in terms of failed services and the tragic loss of loved ones - does not happen to anyone else in need of support.

We believe that people with direct experience have unrivaled expertise in the causes, impacts, and solutions to mental distress. But this expertise has been silenced.

We make these voices heard by holding the state accountable to its human rights obligations and supporting community solutions.

What we want

Radical changes to mental health services
Double the current spending on mental health, introduce real waiting time targets for counselling and properly regulate mental health facilities
Tackle root causes
Make the link between inequality and mental distress by challenging unemployment, punitive welfare assessments, destitution, 'hostile environment' asylum policies and homelessness
Mutual-aid
Support mental health rights activists to build community-based, peer-to-peer networks capable of responding to each others' needs

If we want to address mental health, we need to dig deeper

Chronically underfunded services

5.3

The percentage of the NI annual health budget spent on mental health every year for the past 10 years. The equivalent figure in England is more than 12%.

25

Mental health problems in NI are 25% greater than other parts of the UK.

2.29

If everyone who would benefit from GP counselling actually accessed it, the budget would equate to £2.29 per person - the price of an ice-cream.

Extreme inequality

Suicide and deprivation in NI

Latest News

Mental Health Rights

Blog

The Minister for Health, Robin Swann, should act now to make the changes that are necessary to the Mental Health Strategy

Fri Mar 26 2021 | Mental Health Rights | Sara Boyce

United Call for Mental Health Strategy To Include Firm Commitments on Counselling

Political parties and civic society are united in a call to the Minister for Health to fix the Mental Health Strategy to ensure timely access to counselling for all who need it.