(MENAFN- AFP) Long-term underfunding of mental health services in England has ruined countless lives and led to "thousands of tragic and unnecessary deaths," a report said Monday.
The review, by an independent mental health taskforce set up by NHS England, said more than £1 billion ($1.45 billion) a year of additional funding was needed by 2020/21 to provide care for one million extra people.
"Mental health services have been underfunded for decades and too many people have received no help at all, leading to hundreds of thousands of lives put on hold or ruined," wrote taskforce chairman Paul Farmer, the chief executive of mental health charity Mind.
The study said mental health problems were "widespread, at times disabling, yet often hidden".
It said one in four adults experiences at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any given year and that mental health represents "the largest single cause of disability in the UK".
Despite recent expansion in psychological therapies, the report found NHS England is only providing this care to 15 percent of adults who need it.
Most children and young people receive no support at all, and even for those that do the average wait for routine appointments for psychological therapy was 32 weeks in 2015/16.
The review found that half of all mental health problems have been established by the age of 14, rising to 75 per cent by age 24.
The cost to the economy is estimated at £105 billion a year -- roughly the cost of the entire NHS, the report said.
- Suicide rates -
After many years of decline, suicide rates in England have increased steadily in recent years, peaking at 4,882 deaths in 2014, with the rise most marked among middle-aged men.
The report said NHS England "must provide equal status to mental and physical health, equal status to mental health staff and equal funding for mental health services as part of a triple approach to improve mental health care".
It said physical and mental health were closely linked and that people with severe and prolonged mental illness are at risk of dying on average 15 to 20 years earlier than others.
The NHS accepted the report findings and pledged to find the funding which it said would help "more than a million extra people" every year with mental health problems receive treatment in England by 2021.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "We have made monumental strides in the way we think about and treat mental illness in this country in the last few decades -- from a society that locks people away in asylums to one giving mental health equal priority in law.
"But we must accelerate progress even further."
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