Mental health costs 'to spiral'

My second blog today about the projected rise in costs of something - an occurrence that makes me glad for the invention of the world spiral which at least means I can partially avoid the impression that this blog is a homage to the Lighthouse Family's song High. Again this story comes from the BBC - it reports that the cost of caring for people with mental health problems is set to rise from £47bn a year, compared with £22.5bn in 2007 according to the Kings Fund study.

This will be mainly due to a "predicted rise in the number of people with dementia". The study says; "early detection of mental problems and prompt therapy could help the wider economy by keeping those affected in work." Now, this is all well and good but I can't help wondering where this emphasis on prevention when it comes to tackling other mental health problems like depression and perhaps more urgently the alarming rise in instances of self-harm amoung young people. Would it be overly cynical to suggest that the reason that these problems don't receive the same attention is because of the relative lack of impact these problems have on the economy - ie, young people are often not fully-fledged economic 'units' in the way older people would be?

It is not an either/or equation - nobody is suggesting that dementia sufferers should be denied the resources that they need. Prevention is always better than having to administer a cure in the long-run and so it is with the multitude of problems caused by self-harm. The resources should be made available to tackle that problem too and the prevention ethos should be a central plank of government policy.

Government plans new anti-smoking measures

Health minister Alan Johnson has said that the government is considering a ban on cigarette vending machines, removing cigarettes from display in shops and outlawing the sale of packets of 10. He said that he would be launching a consultation paper on new anti-smoking measures next week.

In remarks quoted on Reuters he said that;

"Banning vending machines where you can't have any control over the age of the person who's buying it -- it happened in many other European countries a long time ago with startling results.

"Whether you should be able to buy 10 cigarettes or whether you should insist that you can only buy 20, that's an issue we need to look at very closely."


I have to confess a vested interest - I smoke. Politically smokers are pariahs subjected to heavy taxation and now their rights are increasingly under attack. It simply isn't fashionable to stand up for their rights and that is why it has to be done, besides Johnson's logic is fuzzy. Going from packs of 20 to packs of 10 is one of the ways that smokers cut down their intake as a possible step towards quitting so rather than encouraging them on that path the government now wants to outlaw the packs of 10.

It is true that vending machines can't regulate a person's age but they are generally placed in age-prohibitive places like bars - at the very least they should be allowed to remain there. Displaying cigarettes is neither here nor there, teenagers are more likely to be influenced by peers or parents rather than a shops display window. The government would be far better advised to spend it's time and money on serious anti-smoking programmes which are educationally preventative or else improving resources for services tackling the causes of smoking rather than drafting more socially authoritarian legislation.

Forced smiling is a health risk - study

Enforced smiling at work can seriously damage your health, German scientists claim - it wasn't commissioned by Gordon Brown as far as I know.

'Professional smilers', such as flight attendants, sales personnel, call centre operators, waiters, and others in contact with the public for extended periods of time, are at risk of seriously harming their health say researchers. Speaking personally for a second as somebody in one of the 'at risk' categories, call-centre flunky, I find its inclusion a bit of a mystery. Are there call centers that have videophone?? If not, then why are they 'at risk' from enforced smiling?? I won't even go into some of the faces I pull (nor, incidentally will I be naming where I work). Although I have been told that I need to be 'consistently positive' so I suppose the point about an enforced emotional state remains valid.

Professor Dieter Zapf, a researcher into human emotions who led the team of psychologists at Frankfurt University, said that fake friendliness led to depression, stress, and a lowering of the immune system. This in turn can trigger more serious ailments, such as high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, he claimed on Personnel Today. He added that;

"Every time a person is forced to repress his true feelings, there are negative consequences for his health."