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It’s a pleasure to join you, not least because it gives me the opportunity to thank the gloriously named New Savoy Partnership, both for hosting this very important conference and also for their support and advice on expanding access to psychological therapies.

You all know the stark statistics. At any one time, one in six people will be living with a mental health problem. One in four will experience an episode of mental illness at some point in their lifetime. If this statistic were applied to some of this country’s most venerable institutions, it would mean that at least one presenter of the Today programme, one of the Strictly Come Dancing judges and around six players in the current England football squad, have experienced or will experience a mental illness at some point in their lives.

Those who live with mental health problems often do so at great personal cost. Depression and anxiety puts immense strain on relationships – with fear and misunderstanding leading even close friends and family members to distance themselves from their loved ones. And for too many people, what begins as a serious but short-term and treatable mental health problem, leads not only to significant periods off work, but  complete disconnection from the labour market.

Widespread mental health problems are a leading cause of inequality and exclusion.  42 per cent of people on incapacity benefit have been forced out of work because of a mental health issue. Those who stay on incapacity benefit for more than a year are likely to stay there for eight years. If they’re on it for 2 years, they are more likely to die or retire than ever work again.

Contrary to the recently expressed view that “recession can be good for us”, long-term unemployment should carry its own health warning. Those who are out of work are more likely to be on medication, admitted to hospital and to die prematurely. Suicide rates are 35 times higher among the long-term unemployed than among those in employment.

Earlier this week, my department, with the Department of Work and Pensions, in response to the excellent report by Dame Carol Black, set out measures to help people who are ill to stay in work and those who have been forced to leave the workplace to return. Helping people who have left employment because of poor mental health, is an essential component of our proposals. This does not mean forcing people who are unable to work into employment - it does mean providing them with the right advice and support to enable them to lead fulfilling lives.

With these times of economic uncertainty bringing additional stress, it is even more important that we provide proper support for people experiencing anxiety and depression.

This is particularly pertinent as we approach Christmas - a time of year when the enforced jollity of the festive season combines with financial pressures to intensify feelings of loneliness and isolation.

It is the duty of any responsible and compassionate government to make sure that those with mental health problems can access the support they need.

While no one would claim that current services were perfect, there has been significant improvement over the past decade. In October, the World Health Organisation rated mental health services in this country as the best in Europe, with particular praise for community-based treatment and preventative services.

At the heart of our plans for further enhancement is the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme. All too often in the recent past, people experiencing anxiety and depression received relatively little help from the NHS unless their condition was particularly severe: in 2000, only 9 per cent of people diagnosed with depression received psychological therapy, despite clear evidence of its effectiveness.

This is something we are determined to change. The 13 new psychological therapy pilots launched a year ago have treated 17,500 people. This month, thirty-five primary care trusts launched their services – fifteen more than we had originally committed to. By 2011, these services will be rolled out to at least half of the country, and more likely two thirds, if expansion continues at the current rate. And by 2010, annual investment will have risen from £33 million this year to £173 million. We are also doing more to ensure greater awareness among GPs of the availability of psychological therapies, and to ensure that more people are able to self-refer.

We now need to look at how we will expand access further.  While cognitive behavioural therapy, which has an established evidence base, will remain at the core of the psychological therapies programme, it will not do so at the exclusion of other equally valid forms of therapy.

Today, I am publishing a Statement of Intent. It confirms our commitment to improving access to talking therapies – not just CBT, but all NICE-approved psychological therapies.

We also need to improve mental health services for children and young people. Last week, Ed Balls and  I received the final report of the independent review of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). It highlighted that while services for some children and young people are excellent, the quality of CAMHS is hugely variable, and there needs to be much more focus on prevention and early intervention. It also showed the need to do more to improve awareness in schools and other settings for children and young people of mental health issues, and provide the right support, including more therapeutic services.

Improving access to services is critical to tackling exclusion and disadvantage. But we must also do more to address stigma. Prejudice and discrimination against people with mental health problems is entrenched.

One in six people surveyed believe that it would be unwise to marry someone who has suffered from a mental illness at some point in their lives.

One in four thought that people who had experienced mental health problems shouldn’t hold public office. Imagine if this had been applied to Winston Churchill, whose struggles with depression – what he called his “black dog” - are well-documented.

One in four also thought that people with mental health problems shouldn’t live in the same neighbourhoods as so-called “normal” people.

And the proportion who thought people with mental health problems were likely to be violent has increased to over a third. Yet the vast majority of mental illness is to do with depression and anxiety. Even those diagnosed with more serious conditions such as schizophrenia are highly unlikely to pose a threat to members of the public.

The term “mentally ill” still features with alarming regularity in film, television and the press as a lazy description of someone who’s violent and sadistic. Positive and realistic portrayals of people with mental health problems are few and far between. The excellent “Headroom” project by the BBC, which is helping to address stigma with its profiles of well-known people from all walks of life who have battled with mental health problems, is unfortunately a rarity.

Only 6 per cent of media coverage of any mental health issue includes the voice of people who have actually experienced poor mental health, making the ten million people suffering from a mental health problem at any one time, the largest silent minority in the country.

There is no question that such widespread prejudice and misconceptions perpetuate discrimination against people with mental health problems in every aspect of life.

70 per cent of people with mental health conditions say they have experienced discrimination. A third say they have been dismissed or forced to resign as a result of their condition.

A recent survey of mental health service users and carers of people with mental health problems concluded that stigma and discrimination not only led to isolation and unemployment, but discouraged people from seeking treatment and could delay recovery.

No one who suffers from a physical health problem such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes is shunned or victimised because of their condition.  Yet this is an alarmingly common experience for people with mental health problems.

Discrimination – whether it’s casual or contrived - is seen as socially acceptable in a way that other forms of discrimination are not.

It is difficult – and perhaps unwise – to speculate why this stigma has remained largely unchallenged for so long.

It is almost as if the very prevalence of conditions such as depression  - and the fact that they affect all of us, either directly or indirectly - fuels further deep-seated fears and mistrust. 

There’s an episode of The Simpsons, that some of you may have seen, where the character Lisa is trying to tell her mother Marge that she is depressed. Marge’s response typifies widespread attitudes towards depression – the stiff upper lip, pull your socks up approach. She says to Lisa: “Well, it doesn't matter how you feel inside, you know.  It's what shows up on the surface that counts.  That's what my mother taught me.  Take all your bad feelings and push them down.  All the way down, past your knees, until you're almost walking on them.  And then you'll fit in, and you'll be invited to parties and boys will like you, and happiness will follow.”

Mental health problems need to be recognised as a normal part of human experience –  we cannot ignore them like Marge Simpson, push them down, deep down inside and hope they go away.
We all have a responsibility - government, health professionals and the media to fight the prejudice that people with mental health problems experience.

Since 2004, we have funded SHIFT, a seven year programme which is working with employers and the media to challenge stigma and discrimination, including setting up a Speaker’s Bureau – 50 people with mental health problems who are trained to talk to the media about their experiences. There are also resources for employers to promote good mental health in the work place, and provide support for colleagues who may be suffering from mental health problems.

And next year, the charities MIND and Rethink  will launch the national Time to Change campaign, a ground-breaking social marketing initiative that will hopefully lead to radical change in attitudes towards mental health, challenging prejudice and discrimination against people with mental health problems.

In 1958, during a debate to celebrate ten years of the National Health Service, its chief architect, Nye Bevan, talked about how the NHS, even in its infancy, was rescuing people from a “twilight life.”

He said that the role of the NHS was helping people “to go about their normal avocations and lead happy, contented lives.”

When people talk about the incredible achievements of the NHS over the last 60 years, they will no doubt cite increases in life expectancy, the dramatic reductions in maternal and infant mortality or the eradication of childhood diseases such as diphtheria and polio. 

But perhaps the word that defines its contribution is the one Bevan used – serenity. Since 5 July 1948, no one in this country has had to weigh the severity of their illness against the expense incurred by calling a doctor.

Sixty years on, we rightly take the peace of mind that the National Health Service brings for granted. 

But serenity hasn’t vanquished all its foes. In that 1958 debate, two years before he died, Bevan regretted the fact that mental health services hadn’t met his expectations

There has been a transformation over the ensuing 50 years, but mental health problems can still lead to social exclusion. Improved access to services for people with depression or anxiety is absolutely vital, and the rapid expansion of psychological therapy services is long overdue.  Better support for people with mental health problems and a concerted effort to challenge prejudice and discrimination is essential to building a society that’s fair and inclusive, and an NHS that has truly established serenity as its most valuable contribution to British society.