Mental health care must not be overlooked in our fight to save the NHS

One of the most alarming of many alarming signs of a dysfunctional nation is that young people seem to be leaving the labour market because of mental illness. As Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said in his speech to the Confederation of British Industry on Tuesday, “the state of our public services is an economic crisis just as much as a social crisis”.

As we report today, the National Health Service is struggling on all fronts, and mental health services are no exception. It seems as if it were a different country, in a different era, when Theresa May as prime minister promised parity of esteem between mental and physical health services. In the current crisis mental illness is too often an afterthought, when politicians wring their hands about ambulance response times and hospital discharges into social care.

That is why we are proud of our reporting of the often shocking state of provision for people suffering mental illness. Rebecca Thomas, our health correspondent, reports on cases including a patient who stayed for eight days on a mattress in an A&E department before a bed could be found on a ward.