In the run up to the General Election in 2015 so far, I have been watching with batted breath on which party's if any would pounce on the issue of mental health and push a positive policy towards a better future for the mentally ill. We have had mentions from Labour announcing their policy in Manchester and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats promising 500 million towards better services but the Cameron led Conservatives have not announced anything and have again pushed the issue to the back of the queue.
Many of the Mental Health Nurses, Psychologists and Psychiatrists in our NHS have already given up hope on the Tories ever mentioning mental health when it comes to General Elections and the NHS but I haven't.
Other the past year I have waited for the conservative party's stance on mental health to no avail, hoping for at least one forwarding policy that could turn the tide on many mental health professionals thinking but yet again to no avail.
The only time a tremendous drive has been made for mental health from a tory was in 2005 from Liam Fox MP in the Conservative Party leadership campaign, where he made mental health one of his central issues but unfortunately judging by the results the tory faithful did not respond and Liam even said in an interview with Conservativehome that one of his (now ex-) MP colleagues told him that " I was going to vote for you but not if you are going to talk about things like that," the terrible words of that colleague shows how far the Tories need to come on mental health.
So I am going to talk the Tories language to see if it helps, it seems because the coalition hasn't invested in mental health support, the cost of poor mental health to the economy is a staggering 70bn a year.
This seems to say to get a strong economic recovery you need the mentally ill to recover and get the support they deserve.
Secondly to a party that wants to get people back to work, many ex mental health sufferers some of them swing voters are saying that the Conservatives are forcing the mentally ill the opposite way, with cuts making services harder to reach due to lack of funding, which prolongs mental illness and causing sufferers away from the idea of work.
Finally when your own MP Liam Fox is calling the state of our mental health services a national disgrace why are you not even mentioning it once in NHS debates?
The Conservative Party need to bounce back on the issue of mental health and fast with the cost to the economy staggering.
The Conservatives have many compassionate and caring candidates but without showing that through there nationally based policy's how can anyone believe the candidates on the door step, especially those who are suffering or know someone who is suffering mental illness.
This election let's see if they can pull a policy out the bag and show the compassionate Conservatives in the best light.