The Mental Health Act: the impact of poverty and domestic abuse

In this blog, Policy and Public Affairs Officer Tara Harris explores how reform to mental health policy is especially needed for women and girls experiencing poverty and domestic abuse.

This year the Mental Health Act is 40 years old. It is in urgent need of reform; our understanding of mental health has developed enormously since the Act’s introduction. The legislation is outdated and discriminatory, disproportionately impacting Black people and denying people dignity and choices around their mental health.

You’d think this would mean reform was a priority for policymakers, but on the 7th November the King gave his maiden speech – and the long-promised reforms to this act were missing. Including this key commitment could have changed the lives of so many women and girls, getting them access to early intervention and preventative support before their issues escalate. Women and girls are often reaching crisis point before they are seen - and even then, cannot access specialist support and care.

Here, we outline why reforming the Mental Health Act is especially vital for women and girls due to a number of interrelated areas:

The cost-of-living crisis has particularly impacted the mental health of women and girls, especially for those also experiencing domestic abuse.

Our research during the pandemic found that:

• Over 50% of services supporting women and girls identified financial problems and poverty as key drivers of mental health issues for women and girls.
• We found that 38% of women in poverty have experienced violence and abuse, compared with 27% of women who aren’t living in poverty.

The cost-of-living crisis is trapping women experiencing abuse, leaving them with fewer resources for escape:

• Research from Women’s Aid shows that 73% of women who live with and have financial links to their abusers say this is preventing them from leaving or making it harder to leave.

The impacts of the cost of living cannot be underestimated: our Transforming Services for Women’s Futures research surveyed 47 women with multiple unmet needs in Northumbria regarding the winter period of 2022-2023. Of these women:

• 72% said that the cost-of-living crisis directly impacted their health and wellbeing;
• 62% reported skipping meals and stopping buying essentials;
• 43% told us that they had been using foodbanks; and
• 45% resorted to going somewhere outside of their home just to keep warm.

Considered together, the mental health impact of domestic abuse alongside the rising cost of living is significant.

• Our analysis found women who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) are three times more likely to have made a suicide attempt in the past year. Mental health strategies and legislation must catch up with this reality.

We know that there are serious regional disparities in the provision of healthcare, as outlined in our consultation response to the Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into the impact of the rising cost-of-living on women.

Our Dismantling Disadvantage report, from our project with Changing Lives, Transforming Services for Women’s Futures, examined these regional disparities, and the ways in which women in particular were being affected by the discrepancy in public service availability based on their location. This kind of postcode lottery is not acceptable.

• Our analysis found that between 2021-22 in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear 81% (over 145,000) women who needed mental health support did not get it.

We have long been promised changes to this legislation, so it was especially disappointing to see the needs of women and girls overlooked yet again. Last year the Government had a draft version of a reformed Mental Health Act ready to go, but it was scrapped. We were pleased to see Labour’s recent commitment to prioritising these reforms.

The Mental Health Act must be reformed, to ensure that mental health support is gender-, trauma-, age- and culturally-responsive. Women and girls have been waiting too long for the right support – and the outdated Mental Health Act is not fit for purpose to deliver it.

We recently voiced our concern to the Prime Minister alongside a number of other mental health organisations regarding the lack of reform to the MHA included in the King's Speech; read our letter here.