Rory Palmer: I’ll use my time in Brussels to ensure we can all talk about mental health

Today is Time to Talk Day – a day where people across the country are encouraged to have conversations about mental health. Even though our mental health is so important, it’s the kind of thing we don’t always find the time to talk about. It’s easier to put it off or to determine that we just need to stick it out and things will improve. Society’s attitude is improving, but still has a long way to go.

It’s a source of great pride to me that the Labour Party has led the way in this area, in no small part down to the excellent work of the Labour Campaign for Mental Health, the campaigning of MPs like Luciana Berger and, in Jon Ashworth, a shadow health secretary who is fully committed to this agenda.

Labour’s manifesto at the election last year offered a blueprint for improving our mental health. From ring-fencing budgets, to a plan for tackling loneliness and a pledge to reviewing treatment in prisons, I’m extremely proud that our party showed a commitment to tackling the country’s growing mental health crisis.

As the Labour’s health spokesperson in Brussels, I’m determined to make sure that we give our mental health the due attention that it deserves.

That’s why I’m pleased to sign Time to Change’s employer pledge. Like other employers from the world of health, business, local government or higher education, I’ve put together an action plan to prioritise mental health across my team.

It’s based around making sure that staff are trained and empowered to identify mental health problems in themselves and others, giving them opportunities to have discussions about the subject and providing support where necessary. The aim of Time to Change is to change the culture so that this kind of approach becomes the norm.

In my maiden speech in the European parliament, I spoke of the need to “redouble our efforts to secure parity of esteem between mental health and physical health, and to eradicate mental health stigma and discrimination”. The mental health time bomb that people warn about here is just as true in Europe, and young people are particularly at risk.

The spirit of co-operation that exists with our European partners gives us an opportunity to learn from successful approaches in other countries and I’ll be using the relationships I forge with politicians across the EU to see what innovative approaches we can incorporate at home.

One of the underlying challenges around mental health is that there is no easy fix. It isn’t a case of a new initiative, or something that can be addressed by money alone; we need a comprehensive cultural change to the way we deal with the issue. We need to make people feel more comfortable in talking about mental health, whether it’s in the workplace, at home, or with friends.

We can’t change the world overnight, but we can make a start –  one conversation at a time. So join me in taking the time to talk about mental health today and saying that enough is enough: it’s time to change.

Rory Palmer is MEP for the East Midlands.