Category Archives: Mental

Cost of dying reaches record high in UK – and here’s a practical example of help

If you don’t have £10,000 saved up to pay for the cost of your own death, your survivors will be stuck with a hefty bill, it seems.

Here’s The Independent:

According to SunLife’s annual report looking at the growing expenses for the bereaved, the average cost has soared to £9,658. This figure, which includes the price of a funeral, professional fees and other send-off costs, is the highest in the 20 years SunLife has been tracking them.

A basic funeral in the UK, which includes a burial or cremation, all funeral director fees, a mid-range coffin, one funeral limousine, as well as doctor and celebrant fees, have increased to £4,141 from £3,953 last year.

A hike in send-off costs to £2,768 and in professional fees to £2,749 means the overall cost of dying is up £458 year on year.

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The pressure of rising funeral costs has left one in five families experiencing “notable financial concerns”.

Among these, three-quarters of people reported that paying for the funeral impacted their mental health, and two-thirds experienced an impact on their physical health.

Now let’s hear from Susan Bradley, who lost both her mother and sister within 10 months – as also reported in The Independent:

The 51-year-old from Birmingham was devastated when her mother passed away on 9 June 2022 following a stroke and further complications.

The emotional distress of her grief was only intensified by the stress of having to scrape together money for the funeral costs.

The total expenses with Central Co-op Funeral amounted to £4,800, which was to be split between six relatives.

The 51-year-old said she had to be “extra careful” with money and was forced to neglect some of her long-standing payments.

After struggling through her mother’s funeral costs, Ms Bradley was faced with another tragedy – her sister’s sudden passing at the age of 37 in April last year.

The bill for her sister’s funeral increased by £1,000 from that of her mother’s the previous year.

Here comes the helpful bit:

With her carer’s allowance her only income, plus the additional costs of taking in her sister’s two children, Ms Bradley reached out for help to cover the costs of the funeral.

She googled until she found Down to Earth, a UK-wide helpline offering advice and practical support to people struggling with funeral costs.

Down to Earth made an application for Ms Bradley to charity Turn2us who awarded the family £1,980 towards the funeral. They also directed Ms Bradley to Teaching Staff Trust, who provide hardship grants to help people in or previously involved in the education sector through times of financial trouble.

The trust helped the family cover the majority of the remaining expenses of the funeral, significantly reducing the burden for Ms Bradley’s family.

According to the article, people facing spiralling funeral costs are increasingly failing to either heat or eat. They find they are unable to do what the deceased person wanted or what they feel is right to honour that person and it makes some people mentally, emotionally, and physically very ill.

With government help dwindling down to nothing, in real terms – and no surprises there – it is fortunate that these charitable organisations exist to pick up the slack.

But how many of us even know they exist? And will demand for their help rocket beyond their ability, now that we know they do?

Source: Sunlife report: Cost of dying reaches record high in UK, new report reveals | The Independent


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Help these charity runners fund a retreat to boost mental health in UK armed forces

Forming a positive baseline (left-right): Craig, Barney and Steve, training for their run at Cosford on September 30.

A friend of This Writer is joining a 24-hour running challenge to raise funding for a charity that helps UK armed forces personnel cope with mental ill-health.

Craig Chihuri, who lives here in Mid Wales, will join Barney Tierney, Steve Dowd and Dr Rebecca Cam to run 74 miles in 24 hours at RAF Cosford Athletic track, starting at midday next Saturday (September 30, 2023).

The group is raising funds to develop a holistic and positive seven-day retreat for anyone who has served, and is still serving, in any branch of the UK military, who wishes to improve their mindset and outlook.

The retreat will be run by Head Up – Mental Health awareness for UK Armed Forces. The charity was created by four veterans to help forces personnel build a positive mindset and improve their mental resilience.

“There have been a lot of ex-Army people who have been struggling with their mental health,” said Craig, “so if we can raise awareness, and raise a bit of money, it will be great.

“Head Up charity is great – it’s smaller, it’s coming up, so there’s more focus on raising that awareness.”

“Both myself and Craig, over the last four or five years, have done different events for Mind,” added Barney. “Over the past 18 months or so, I have worked at RAF Cosford, so I wanted to relate it to where I work and find a mental health charity within the military.

“We’ve done bike rides from Birmingham to Aberystwyth, then we ran from Birmingham to Aberystwyth, and then we went up and down Snowdon nine times.

“I feel like this one could potentially be up there with the hardest,” he said. “It’s purely 24 hours through the night. We’ve never done anything where you haven’t got a rest through the whole 24 hours. It’s 74 miles in 24 hours and we’ve never done anything on that scale before.”

More details about Head Up are available here.

These runners are relying on your support, so please dig out some pennies and give them a boost. Barney is running a JustGiving page so please make your donation here.


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Mental illness days taken by civil servants rise 38% in one year and here’s the reason

Is it any surprise that Whitehall civil servants took a record 661,433 sick days due to mental health last year – 38 per cent more than the already-phenomenal 558,125 of the year before?

Labour says data reveals ‘mental health crisis at the heart of Whitehall’, as unions blame staff cuts, low pay and long hours.

The figures show that the amount of mental health-related sick leave across the heart of government has been rising continuously for the past decade.

Civil servants at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) took the most sick days for mental health in 2021-22 – a total of 280,597. Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) took off almost as much time – 236,365 days – while the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had the third-highest total, at 88,723 days.

Unions representing Whitehall workers blamed the rising numbers on increased workloads, the impact of Covid-19, staff cuts, low pay, long hours and poor morale.

And the unions are exactly right.

The Tories cut public service pay as soon as they could after taking office – by freezing it for several years at a time (if I recall correctly). So already these employees were being placed under increasing stress because they were finding it harder to make ends meet – and this has become progressively worse.

Staff has been cut back hard, meaning workloads have increased, meaning those who remain are having to work longer hours to hit their targets – if possible.

Oh, and we are told that Tory government ministers have developed a fondness for mistreating their staff as well.

Result: low morale.

Roll all that together and you have a dangerous concoction that is likely to harm the mentality of anybody forced to partake of it.

There is a solution – but it is not one that would occur to a Tory.

You simply employ enough staff to get the job done within normal working hours, and pay them a salary that adequately compensates them for the time they put in and the expertise they bring to the work.

And instead of berating them for failure, you make sure that they are praised for success.

Not only will morale and mental health improve, meaning fewer days’ work will be lost due to illness, but the quality of the work will improve and the people carrying it out will want to stay in the job – because they’re good at it, it’s rewarding and the atmosphere is welcoming.

That’s how you motivate a workforce and keep its members healthy.

But it will never happen under a Conservative government.

Source: Mental health sick days taken by civil servants rise 38% in one year | Civil service | The Guardian

Humanitarian crisis looms over energy price rises

NHS: will astronomical energy price rises create health problems – physical and mental – that could overwhelm the health service in the coming winter?

NHS leaders have warned that the rising cost of energy bills may trigger a humanitarian crisis that their organisation will be left to handle, if the government doesn’t do more to help.

The vertiginous rise in the price of energy may leave millions of people forced to choose between heating their homes and having enough food to eat – and this is likely to have consequences for their health, the NHS Confederation said.

Cold homes are already linked to 10,000 deaths per year; cold conditions can lead to a rise in respiratory conditions, and in older people can also increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and falls.

This winter, those problems would increase the strain on the NHS, whose bosses are already expecting to have to cope with flu, norovirus and Covid outbreaks.

And there would also be a major impact on mental health and well-being.

The government has protested that it is taking action over energy prices and that it is supporting the NHS.

But the payments of £400 to households in England, Scotland and Wales, rising to £1,200 for the poorest, were announced before it was predicted that energy costs may rise to around £4,200 per year.

The government also said it was working with the NHS to make sure it can accommodate winter pressures, including increasing the number of hospital beds available and recruiting staff from foreign countries.

No further action is to be taken until the new prime minister – either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss – is sworn in next month.

Considering the warning from the NHS Confederation, is the current offer too little? And will any extra help arrive too late?

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Three-fifths of Britons are worried about the cost of living. ‘Welcome to our world,’ say benefit claimants

Boris the bung: Johnson has been splurging cash on the very rich for the last three years. Now, when the rest of us are suffering in a cost-of-living crisis he created, he has little for us other than excuses.

Remember when only benefit claimants had to choose between “eating and heating” – buying food for their families or energy for their homes?

Those were happy days for the small-minded Little Britons who merrily voted Tory government after Tory government into power to continue ruining the economy and siphoning cash away from people who need it.

Now, more than 60 per cent of the UK’s population are in the same position as those benefit claimants – and suddenly it isn’t quite as amusing to fling the old “scrounger” accusations around any more, is it?

Many of the same people who supported government benefit cuts that drove claimants to suicide or simply starved them to death are now begging the same government to support them through the current cost-of-living crisis.

And some – not necessarily the same ones – are having suicidal thoughts themselves.

This Writer has a certain amount of sympathy for those who didn’t vote Tory and never supported the victimisation of the vulnerable.

Those who did are finding it isn’t so comfortable when the shoe’s on the other foot, I suppose. I wonder whether they will learn from the experience, to be a little less judgmental about other people, now they have suffered just a little of what the sick and disabled (for example) have endured for more than a decade?

Well, the experience won’t do them any good if they give in to their more grim thoughts, so it is right that everybody who is suffering mental ill-health as a result of the government’s failure in its most basic function – providing affordable food and energy to the population – should get treatment for it.

Sadly (again) we have a government that is not up to the task.

The Tories are using the crisis to provide another subsidy for the rich, with people who own multiple houses set to receive £400 for each of them, no matter whether they are occupied all the time or not.

Landlords will be under no obligation to pass the cash on to tenants who actually pay the bills.

And mental health services have long been neglected by successive Conservative governments.

Now they are scrabbling to catch up, providing £2.3 billion extra per year to treat two million more people – that’s just £1,150 each for around 1/20 of those who need help, according to the Sky News poll.

And they have called for evidence from the public about what should be in a 10-year plan for mental health, that will not make any difference to people who are in need now.

Thomas Jefferson (or was it Benjamin Franklin?) once famously said, “We get the government we deserve.”

I just hope people who are going through hardship now realise that their choice of Tory rule has inflicted the same – and worse – on others for many years.

Source: ‘I can’t take the cost of living anymore’: We asked Britons how the crisis is affecting them

Braverman rants about ‘democracy’ to protect Johnson. What does he have to do with that?

Suella Braverman: her appearances in the Commons made her look like a child showing off in front of her elders.

It seems there’s more in need of fixing than government working practices in Downing Street – including the mental health of members of the administration.

Here’s the Attorney General, Suella Braverman, apparently having a breakdown rather than answering a simple question:

Democracy? Brexit? Covid-19?

No wonder Rupa Huq was staring at her in disbelief.

Boris Johnson trampled on democracy almost from the moment he got into Downing Street with his illegal prorogation of Parliament – as Rupa Huq mentioned in her question – that was an insult to the Queen as it dragged her into his dishonesty.

His Brexit has been so successful that it costs the UK £727 per second. That’s £63 million a day, £440 million per week, lost because of him. It was supposed to deliver UK citizens a dividend of £350 million per week so, by his own standards, Johnson has cheated us of nearly £800 million per week.

And his response to Covid-19 has caused the deaths of at least 180,000 UK citizens, according to the Office of National Statistics.

Suella Braverman is the Attorney General – supposedly the government’s most senior legal advisor. She was talking utter rubbish in response to a legitimate question – and failed to answer the question itself.

This Writer’s opinion is that – given that Parliament does not accept that the government is capable of intentionally lying – the only possible justification for that failure is some form of mental ill-health.

Source: Tory minister goes on bizarre rant about ‘democracy’ when asked if Boris Johnson will face consequences if he broke law

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Lives at risk over mental health crisis as hospitals break urgent bed rule | Mirror Online

Despair: a lack of emergency hospital beds – due to Covid-19? – has had a knock-on effect on people who are mentally-ill, leading to deaths.

This is information I found before having to work on the Riley lawsuit.

The underlying story is clear: people with mental illnesses are being indirectly threatened by government/health service policy during the Covid-19 crisis; they are considered expendable – or they are not considered at all.

The Conservatives in government have known that the NHS was not prepared for a pandemic illness like Covid-19 since Operation Cygnus reported that such an event would overwhelm the health service. That was in 2016/17. They did nothing.

Now the consequences are making themselves felt. And it seems the Tories aren’t bothered. Why should they be?

They aren’t suffering.

A lack of emergency hospital beds for the mentally ill has led to one killing and a spate of suicides, an investigation reveals.

The tragedies happened after patients were turned away because NHS bosses failed to follow legislation to admit urgent cases immediately.

The British Medical Association probe found some had to wait up to a month for hospital admission – and many of the Clinical Commissioning Groups responsible for carrying out the Mental Health Act rule did not record the long waiting times.

In one case, paranoid schizophrenia sufferer Kierran Fletcher, 29, killed a grandad in a frenzied attack.

It was 24 hours after Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust put him in a queue with 23 others.

Coroners linked 11 deaths in a year, including suicides, to pressures on the Trust’s mental health services.

Source: Lives at risk over mental health crisis as hospitals break urgent bed rule – Mirror Online

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DWP disabled sanctions extension shows great tragedy is due to timing, too

Habitual cruelty: if you thought the Tories stopped persecuting people with long-term illnesses and disabilities during the Covid-19 crisis, think again.

The Department for Work and Pensions has employed its usual subtlety and tact – and has extended benefit sanctions against people with disabilities in time for the new English lockdown.

People with long-term illnesses and/or disabilities who fail to take part in telephone work capability assessments are now to be sanctioned. The change was brought in on November 2, days before the new lockdown began.

The change has been attacked by mental health charity Mind as an “abandonment of their responsibility to keep people safe”.

Mind’s Ayaz Manji said:

We need to see a compassionate response to this pandemic.

That has to mean removing benefit sanctions and cancelling reassessments for disability benefits so that people with mental health problems don’t face the prospect of going without income this winter.

Sadly, we are not going to see any compassion from the Department for Work and Pensions while it is under Tory control.

The Department has said nobody will be sanctioned without being contacted first – which raises interesting questions if assessors can’t even phone up a claimant properly:

People will be contacted to ask them to explain why they did not, or could not attend or participate in the assessment and where good cause is provided and accepted, support will continue.

We don’t want to sanction anyone and our absolute priority is to ensure people continue to receive the support they are entitled to.

We will contact anyone who hasn’t engaged in a telephone appointment and their support will absolutely continue if they have a good reason for not attending or participating.

We’ve heard it all before. Expect a slew of articles about the DWP failing to follow this simple routine.

Source: DWP extends benefit sanctions against disabled people just as new lockdown begins – Mirror Online

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Arrogant Dorries rejects cross-party talks to help mental health of NHS & care staff – EIGHT TIMES

Nadine Dorries: Wrong again.

The health minister who is so stupid she said the November lockdown in England could only have been predicted with a crystal ball has struck again.

There’s a reason we call Nadine Dorries “Mad Nad”.

Over the weekend, the woman widely considered to be the stupidist Tory MP – against stiff competition! – admitted that she did not understand the information being received and used by her own department of government; SAGE had demanded a lockdown in September.

Now she has demonstrated that she does not understand that her government’s failure to get to grips with the Covid crisis in any meaningful way over a period of nearly a year is having a devastating effect on the mental health of people working in the NHS and in the care sector.

Labour MP Doctor Rosena Allin-Khan does – and appealed to Dorries no fewer than eight times to join with her in devising a mental health package that has cross-party support. Dorries rejected it in a manner that belittled not only herself but her entire miserable government:

Condemnation has rained down on Dorries from all sides:

It won’t have any effect, though.

I say that not because the Johnson government has a huge Parliamentary majority – granted to it by a population that was desperate to resolve the Brexit crisis that the Tories had created and gulled by rabidly right-wing mass media into thinking the Tories were the only party that could provide a solution (which is lunacy, if you think about it for just one moment).

The reason condemnation won’t work on Tories like Dorries can be summed up in a simple, well-known saying:

No sense, no feeling.

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A polite letter to Therese Coffey [TRIGGER WARNING]

Phillip Herron.

[Yes, this article comes with a trigger warning as it discusses matters which some people may find extremely upsetting.]

Dear Ms Coffey,

Please take a good, long look at the image accompanying this. It is the last photograph of Phillip Herron, taken minutes before he took his own life.

Mr Herron died because your employees at the Department for Work and Pensions could not be bothered to take their fingers out of their collective posteriors long enough to pay him the Universal Credit he was owed. He would undoubtedly be alive now if they had.

No doubt the DWP officers concerned would say they did not need to pay Mr Herron as Universal Credit is paid in arrears and his five-week wait had not yet ended. They were “only following orders”, they will say, echoing the so-called Nuremberg Defence that did not protect any German soldiers who were prosecuted for ensuring the deaths of so many people during World War II.

You, together with previous Work and Pensions secretaries, and many other Conservative MPs past and present, justify the wait with the mantra that delaying payment for more than a month prepares claimants for the world of work, but we all know that is not true.

It attacks their mental health. It causes depression and despair, and ultimately can lead to suicidal thoughts. Mr Herron’s death is a matter of Conservative government policy.

When he died, he had just £4.61 in his bank account and debts of more than £20,000 that were escalating due to that five-week wait for Universal Credit.

£20,000 is not a substantial sum of money in this day and age. I know you have said it is in interviews, but just take a look at your own bank balance. You probably consider that to be small change; the kind of pocket money you might spend on a night out.

It is one-sixth of the pay rise you will receive next year, just for being a member of Parliament.

It could have been handled. There are ways to ensure debt can be paid off within a reasonable period of time, no matter what the debtor’s means. But Mr Herron could not see that because your system forced him to concentrate on the negative aspects of his situation.

He saw no way out because you denied it to him. So he took his own life. His blood is on your hands. I understand DWP jargon describes that as a “positive benefit outcome”.

Now his three young children must go through life without a father – because that is what you demanded.

Their upbringing is likely to be a much greater burden on public funds than paying his Universal Credit claim – because that is what you demanded.

And there are countless others in the same predicament right now – because that is what you demand.

Your system does not help anybody. It pressurises them; it brutalises them; it forces them to consider the unthinkable – because that is what you demand.

It does not matter whether you spoke the words. You ordered the death of this man.

Please make a copy of his photograph and put it on your wall. Then, every day, when you come into work, you can spend time looking at it – and try to find a way to justify the fact that you caused him to die.

You can find more information – and more than 18,000 comments from members of the public – in this Facebook post.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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