Stephen Pound MP meets local resident at Parliament to discuss mental health issues

Ealing residents met Stephen Pound MP for Ealing North, about mental health issues

Ealing residents met Stephen Pound MP for Ealing North, at Parliament on Wednesday 16th July to ask him what he is doing about mental health issues. 

With 25% of the population experiencing mental distress at some point in their adult life and times of recession being well-documented as increasing stress and anxiety, issues such as mental health provision and access are key. 

The meeting took place at a speed-lobbying event, organised by mental health charity Rethink

The meeting took place at a speed-lobbying event, organised by mental health charity Rethink, that brought together 10 people with mental health conditions from all over England to talk to their MPs and highlight the importance of focusing on mental health. 

 

Stephen Pound MP for Ealing North said: “Mental illness is something that affects us all.  We ignore it at our peril, and any attempt to isolate it (mental illness) would be a disaster.”

Polly Canning, Rethink Activist Manager said: “It is very important that people with mental health problems aren’t overlooked, especially as we are now facing public spending cuts.  One of the best ways for MPs to understand how these issues really hit home locally is to meet local people and hear it directly.”

Key facts
•         One in four people around the world will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their lives  (World Health Organization, 2001, Mental Health: New Understanding New Hope)
•         16% of people pay privately for treatment because of the long wait for talking therapies on the NHS  (We need to Talk coalition, 2008, While we are waiting)
•         At any one time up to 630,000 people are in contact with specialised mental health services (Department of Health, 2004, Choosing health: Making healthy choices easier)
•         41% of people with a mental health condition said they had not put in an application for a job because they believed they would be discriminated against (Rethink, 2008, Stigma Shout)
•         3 in 10 employees will experience mental health problems in any given year (Office of National Statistics, 1995, Surveys of psychiatric morbidity in Great Britain. Report 3: Economic activity and social functioning of adults with psychiatric disorders)
•         People with mental health problems are at double the risk of losing their jobs (Social Exclusion Unit, 2004, Mental Health & Social Exclusion)
•         85% of employers who have employed someone with a history of mental health problems have no regrets. (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2008, RC Psych: Mental Health and Work)
•         People with mental illness have the highest ‘want to work’ rate of any group of people with disabilities (Office of National Statistics, 2003, Labour Force Survey)

For more information contact Rethink’s media team on 020 7840 3138 / 3146

A Season of Fetes JULY 2009

If Autumn be the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness then summer is surely the time of fetes, fairs and festivals.

Opening St Joseph's Primary School Summer Fete

No honest MP considers a June or July weekend complete without at least a dozen such occasions and he or she will stagger back home on Sunday evening replete of tombolas, raffles, “beat the goalie” competitions and bearing enough home made jam to feed a fair sized nation.

Opening the Pitshanger Party in the Park

An MP may have – typically – between thirty and forty primary schools, half a dozen high schools, a score of Scout and Guide Groups and a fair clutch of places of worship in their constituency.
In June and July every single one will have some sort of a fair or fete and to these must be added the carnivals, melas and typical civic duties revolving around anniversaries, unveilings or awards.

Opening the St.Raphael's Primary School Summer Fete

Each and every occasion will see the MP once but the MP will see every one of them over the weekends and it can become a little confusing.
Heaven help the Honourable Member who announces to the massed membership of the St.Raphael’s Parent Teacher Association that he is delighted to be here at St.Gregory’s. Other small errors creep in and I was severely upbraided – whilst unveiling as plaque in honour of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of three times Wimbledon winner Fred Perry for mentioning local sporting heroes such as Andrew Strauss and Peter Crouch without realising that M.J.Brearley or Middlesex and England was also an Ealing boy. How I could have forgotten the author of that thunderous triple century against Northern Zone in Peshawar during the 1966/67 U25s tour is inexplicable and inexcusable but pales against the awful error that I committed last week.
Dashing off a few hundred words for the “Guardian” newspaper (a poor provincial substitute for Asian Voice”) I made passing reference to Peter Sallis – the actor who played Clegg (the character in “Last of the Summer Wine” not the faintly risible leader of the Liberal Democrats) – and meant to refer to him as “the great Peter Sallis” of “Wallace and Grommit” fame.
Some damnable gremlin crept into the system and my words emerged as “the late Peter Sallis”.
Little did I know that Peter Sallis (very much alive and thankfully so) is massively popular among the “Guardian” readership and I was almost swept under by the tidal wave of fury from his friends and fans for suggesting that their hero was no more.
I telephoned to his agent in an attempt to discover the address to which a grovelling apology could be sent but was told that Mr.Sallis was rather distressed as some beastly MP had said that he was dead. I wisely hung up the telephone.
Now, with fevered brow and sunburnt pate soothed by unguents I can sit back and contemplate the error of my ways.
I can also recall the wonderful weeks of summer madness and reflect on the eternal verity that every MP will complain of the festival season but that none of us would change it for all the tea in Whitehall.

Steve Pound says a fond “Farewell” to Thelma

Steve Pound MP lends his voice in appreciation for the work Thelma Cox, Headteacher of Featherstone High School, who retired after 17 years successful service at the school.

Thelma has led a dedicated team of teachers, who together have this year achieved the schools highest number of GCSE Passes and has also had a ringing endorsement from OFSTED that FeatherstoneHigh is an outstanding school as well as outstanding facilities and teaching.