On mental health, the royal family is doing more than our government | William Davies

The public profile of mental health experienced another boost this week, thanks to some moving comments made by Prince Harry and the Duke of Cambridge about the impact of their mother’s death, nearly 20 years ago. The two royals are working for the Heads Together campaign, which seeks to combat the stigma surrounding mental health issues, and to encourage people to speak more openly about their difficulties.

Harry’s admission that he had ignored his own emotional distress for several years before eventually having counselling was a valuable contribution, from a figure more commonly associated with laddish machismo. William’s focus on male suicide statistics was also a good use of his celebrity.

The royal family cannot get involved in divisive party political issues, and so we can only conclude from these interventions that mental health is something that exists beyond the fray of politics. Breaking the “stigma” surrounding mental health issues is certainly not something that one would want to identify as a leftwing or a rightwing agenda.

There is no more damning indictment on British society in 2017 than the prevalence of mental distress among children

On the other hand, political parties have been keen to make the mental health agenda their own. Theresa May has established mental health as one of the key areas where she hopes to signal her government’s concern for everyday human suffering, making a high-profile speech in January that also stressed the importance of breaking the stigma that clouds the issue.

All of this presents something of a riddle. Mental health problems have risen in profile to the point where the prime minister and the heir to the throne are personally committed to combating them. Yet there is scarcely any public discussion about where they actually stem from. Losing a parent at a vulnerable age, as Harry did, is terrible and harmful – but epidemics do not arise purely out of private tragedies.

The stigma attached to mental health is a real problem in workplaces and schools, as are the benefits of overturning it. But stigma can scarcely be viewed as the cause of what it stigmatises.

The orthodoxy that has taken root since the 1980s is that mental health problems are disorders of the brain. The success of SSRIs since the launch of Prozac in 1987 has helped to entrench this view. This doesn’t mean that mental illness can’t be treated with “talking cures”, such as cognitive behavioural therapy or by being more open about one’s emotions, as Prince Harry has argued. But the idea that mental health problems are illnesses just like any other illnesses has become one of the main ways in which the stigma is challenged. Comparisons with cancer have become common.

The idea that one is simply “unwell” no doubt provides comfort to many people wrestling with their own depression or anxiety. But it also blocks out a whole host of more fundamental cultural, political and economic questions regarding the distribution of distress in our society – the sorts of questions that the Duke of Cambridge would be less likely to grapple with.

‘There is scarcely any public discussion about where [Britain’s mental health problems] actually stem from.’ Photograph: SilverHub/Rex Features

There is no more damning indictment on British society in 2017 than the prevalence of mental distress among children. Nearly a quarter of a million are receiving mental health treatment from the NHS, and those contacting Childline complaining of anxiety and exam-related stress have been climbing year-on-year. Rates of self-harm amongst young girls have risen by 42% in a decade.

Are we to believe that it was simply “stigma” that swept all this under the carpet in the past? Or might children be telling the truth, when they say they feel overwhelmed by the requirement to perform, excel, keep up? The NSPCC reports that some children are having to sit mock exams just a few weeks after returning from the summer holidays. Think about what that means and does psychologically. What does Theresa May have to say about that? British children have become damagingly competitive, and less forgiving of failure. Which minister will have the guts to stand up and say to children that being average is OK?

Adult mental health problems may present themselves as medical and be treated as such, but they are not immune to sociological analysis. Researchers have found that adult mental health is worse among those who frequently moved house as a child. Today’s housing crisis is tomorrow’s mental health crisis.

Rising household indebtedness is another major culprit, especially the kinds of problem debts that are associated with week-by-week financial precarity. Children suffer when their parents are too stressed or depressed to listen to them or play with them. Debt problems break up families.

Austerity has been disastrous for the nation’s mental health. The British Psychological Society has called for a termination of benefit sanctions (which are effectively designed to produce anxiety); academics have shown the deep emotional harm wrought by the bedroom tax. Teachers, who live under the constant spectre of monitoring and performance assessment, are seeking medical help for stress in shocking numbers.

The seductive concept of “public sector productivity gains” conceals thousands of personal tragedies among doctors, paramedics and local government service providers, many of whom cling to a dream of exiting their profession. And these are the same people who look after the wellbeing of our children and mental health patients.

No doubt mental health will feature prominently in party manifestos, now that it’s gone mainstream. Whether any of the above gets a look-in remains to be seen. Labour should be shouting about it, and not allow the hypocritical architects of austerity an inch of this territory. Next time a Labour politician is patronised as being too leftwing by a journalist, the evidence on what inequality does to our minds should be slung back.

So, yes, we need to talk more. And, yes, stigma surrounding depression and anxiety makes things worse. But it’s not just ourselves and our medical histories we need to talk about. We also need to talk about what sort of society we’ve built, and what the alternative might look like. For all their good intentions, Harry and Wills might need to sit that one out.

On mental health, the royal family is doing more than our government | William Davies

Pollution is killing our children. Here’s how we can save them | Geraint Davies

Every weekday, millions of primary school children across the UK put their lives at risk. Break time brings relief for busy teachers and is often met with screams of delight as children run out onto the playground. But in many of our major cities, tens of thousands of children in hundreds of schools, nurseries and colleges are at risk as they inhale diesel pollution breaching EU air quality standards.

Across the UK, more than 40,000 people die prematurely from diesel pollution, at a cost of £20bn each year, according to the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Paediatrics 2016 report. Now 50% of new cars are diesel, with each car producing many times more fumes than laboratory tests had previously indicated. The VW scandal has shown that the motor industry cannot be trusted and the royal colleges’ report finds that babies and children are particularly at risk. Foetuses in pregnant women exposed to air pollution are more likely to suffer effects to their lungs, heart and neurological development. Children in “clean air zones”, areas where the air quality problem is most serious, have a 10% reduced lung capacity and have more respiratory problems, together with effects on their nervous, immune and cardiovascular systems. This leads to physical and mental health problems in later life.

The government has compelling evidence to act now. Instead it fears the backlash of diesel drivers who bought their cars in good faith and are still encouraged to do so by lower vehicle tax rates. The public-health risks of diesel particulates have been well known since the days of Margaret Thatcher. However, the impact of nitrogen oxides and the scale of underestimated pollution from lab tests compounded by the sheer volume of cars has now become a public-health catastrophe. That’s why the demand for a new Clean Air Act grows. Meanwhile, the supreme court has demanded that the government produces a clean air strategy, to fulfil our EU air quality obligations. Today, I publish my clean air bill to give shape and ambition to the government’s plan.

Britain needs to take bold leadership. We already know that four capital cities – Paris, Madrid, Athens and Mexico City – have plans to remove diesel vehicles by 2025 and that the markets are investing in zero-emissions futures. Tesla, founded in 2003, produces just 76,000 electric cars and is valued at $ 49bn (£38bn) – $ 3bn more than Ford, founded a century earlier, which produces 6.6m vehicles.

The clean air bill is a route map to reach World Health Organization air quality standards by tackling emissions in our cities, ports and airports. It provides the signals and incentives for consumers and producers to change their behaviour to do so.

Rather than penalising diesel car-owners who bought in good faith, the bill calls for recall and refit of cars, fiscal incentives and scrappage schemes largely funded by manufacturers for drivers to switch to vehicles that produce fewer – or ideally, zero – emissions. It provides for a national electric and hydrogen refuelling network and gives local authorities a responsibility to measure and publicise pollution levels, in particular close to vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly. Councils will have powers to restrict access or introduce pollution charges if communities so wish, based on local evidence.

What’s more, new powers are proposed to combat diesel pollution belching into communities from idling ships in port by requiring a switch to port-provided electric power. The bill also addresses freight transport, pollution at airports and “cheat devices” installed on cars. Overall, the bill aims to make our right to clean air a reality.

Our first duty as parents is to protect our children. Break time, walking to the shops and football in the park shouldn’t be life-or-death decisions beyond our control. They needn’t be. For the sake of all our children, let’s do something about it now.

Pollution is killing our children. Here’s how we can save them | Geraint Davies

Bethan Davies obituary

My mother, Bethan Davies, who has died aged 89, was a consultant paediatric audiologist at Charing Cross hospital, London. Between the early 1970s and her retirement in 1993, she built up a renowned unit there for the diagnosis of deaf children.

She was passionate about her work and even when dealing with the most difficult of children she rarely failed to get an audiogram, assessing the quietest sound that the young patient could hear. Bethan had a particular interest in the hearing problems of patients with Down’s syndrome.

Born in Gravesend, Kent, to Welsh parents, Enid (nee Thickens) and Benjamin Davies, who were both teachers, Bethan spoke only Welsh until the age of five. On leaving school in Gravesend, Bethan trained at the West London hospital medical school and qualified as a doctor in 1952. In the same year she married Ralph Schwiller, a concert violinist. They moved to Bournemouth, where Bethan worked for the local authority health department. In 1958 she moved to Southampton as a school doctor. Bethan and Ralph divorced a few years later.

In 1970 she welcomed the first of the many Burmese cats she would keep throughout her life. Bethan also collected cat pictures and 20th-century illustrated children’s books.

In her mid-40s, she signed up to study for an MEd in audiology at Manchester University. At the time the Inner London Education Authority was concerned that children were arriving in schools with hearing aids from hospitals but without essential information for teachers. It was decided that four specialist clinical teams should be established, one in each quadrant of London.

Bethan was identified as one of the people from the MEd course who should be based at Guy’s hospital, London, once she had finished her training. However, changes were afoot in the NHS and halfway through the course Bethan heard that Guy’s had appointed its own medical audiologist.

When she arrived in the capital after graduating in 1973, she toured hospitals looking for a base. Initially, Bethan established a clinic at Paddington Green children’s hospital. The new Charing Cross hospital was just opening in Hammersmith and Bethan decided to take a look and eventually discovered a large, empty room that was supposed to be the patients’ library. She commandeered the space and it became her audiological base.

In 1986, she married Val Tyrrell, a professor of chemistry at Kensington and Chelsea College, and they lived in Kingston, south-west London. In 2001 Bethan, Val and the cats moved to Wilmslow, Cheshire, but she was starting to show signs of the memory loss that later developed into Alzheimer’s.

She is survived by Val and me, by her stepchildren, Pippa, Fiona, Patrick and Sebastián, and by 13 step-grandchildren.

Her brother, Jeffrey, who emigrated to Australia in the 60s, predeceased her.

Bethan Davies obituary

In the 19th century it was clean consuming water, now its healthy behaviour | Sally Davies

Local government could act to restrict the results of alcohol, tobacco and quick foods by incorporating a overall health effect evaluation into the approval processes for preparing applications. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Pictures

The first wave of public wellness action occurred in the wake of the industrial revolution. It was mainly aimed at bettering environmental problems: the provision of clean consuming water, enhanced sewage disposal and safer foods. There was also legislation to improve functioning problems and protect children.

It was throughout this period that John Snow identified the supply of the 1854 Soho cholera epidemic as the public water pump on Broad Street, following conversations with regional residents and clever linking of information. It was later identified that the public properly had been dug only 3 feet from an outdated cesspit. Snow’s review is regarded by a lot of as the founding event of the science of epidemiology and is an early demonstration of the value of very good public well being practice.

Defending people from these types of threats stays at the heart of our public health method. We continuously face new infectious disease threats, such as antimicrobial resistance. But public well being practice is evolutionary, driven by waves of well being challenges and continuous improvement in our understanding and information. Every new wave reflects major shifts in pondering about the nature of society and wellness.

The most latest wave – roughly from the 1960s to existing – has encompassed identifying effective interventions that prolong healthful existence, higher comprehending of the leads to of disease, action close to risk factors and life-style, and addressing social inequalities in overall health.

The greatest problems dealing with societies in the 21st century are the altering burden of disease and development of resistance of microbes to remedy. This indicates that men and women and society alike need to take more obligation for well being.

Three items will support to attain this: incentives for wholesome behaviour promotion of a healthier option as the default choice and tackling environments that advertise unhealthy behaviour.

Various groups in society are probably to contribute in diverse methods. Governments need to have to make certain that public wellness policy is informed by evidence, is rigorously assessed and coordinated successfully across Whitehall. My part as chief health-related officer is unique, as I am a civil servant but have a statutory duty to give independent advice to government. It is my job to make certain that public overall health and antimicrobial resistance is at the forefront of politicians’ minds.

Meanwhile, the wide remit of nearby government – which contains infrastructure organizing, waste and recycling, leisure and tourism, and social care – gives a number of possibilities to promote healthier environments. Action could consist of reduction of the density and spot of alcohol, tobacco and quickly-foods shops. This could be done by incorporating a wellness influence evaluation into approval processes for planning.

The private sector can also play a element as employers, as building- and land-owners, and by way of its affect on customers. In particular, market has a part in promoting the wellness of its workforce, along with a broader duty to society as a complete.

Attaining all this will imply a huge adjust in social norms. There is expanding evidence of the power that social networks exert on behaviour. For healthy behaviour to come as common, institutional, social and physical environments all want to help this shift in the collective mindset. It can only function as a holistic, collaborative hard work.

Several of these ideas are not new and there is sturdy evidence for their significance, emanating for illustration from the Ottawa Charter and the Planet Overall health Organisation’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Overall health. But we need to have a new wave of leaders, in households, social networks, organisations and wider society – collectively driving a adjust towards more healthy behaviour.

•The Guardian Society Professionals web site for people doing work in the public servies is revisiting Beveridge’s five giant evils of the welfare state. Lengthy-term and continual overall health situations are a modern social evil. Find out how social professionals are helping to increase care at theguardian.com/societyprofessionals

In the 19th century it was clean consuming water, now its healthy behaviour | Sally Davies

Let mothers breastfeed their babies in workplace meetings, says Dame Sally Davies

Mothers need to be allowed to breastfeed their children at work and even in office meetings, the country’s chief healthcare officer Professor Sally Davies has explained.

Professor Davies mentioned ladies ought to be allowed to feed their babies in the workplace as component of daily lifestyle.

Dame Sally, who earns far more than £225,000 a year as the Government’s prime healthcare advisor, described the time that she shocked male colleagues when she attempted to breastfeed her daughter in the course of a meeting, the Mail reported.

Speaking of the want to make breastfeeding far more ‘acceptable’, she said: ‘I was there in this giant shirt with a child hiding below it and a comment was produced and my response was quite sharp.

Addressing an occasion organised by the Wellbeing of Women charity in London yesterday, Dame Sally, 64, mentioned that one particular way of boosting women’s prospective customers in the workplace would be encouraging them to breastfeed at operate.

Prof Davies claimed that women physicians have been underestimated and poorly paid as properly as far significantly less most likely to be in positions of energy.

She used her speech to try and motivate the NHS to do more to ensure females can ‘make it up the ladder’.

Let mothers breastfeed their babies in workplace meetings, says Dame Sally Davies