Children to be taught worrying is not a mental-health condition
Teachers have been told they must avoid encouraging pupils to self-diagnose 'normal feelings' as problems such as anxiety and depression.
The radical change, in new guidance issued to schools, comes amid escalating concern over the number of young people being signed off sick.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, told The Telegraph: 'For too many children today, their understanding of how to manage their mood and regulate their emotions is coming from social media, rather than their parents, teachers or trained professionals.
'Our new RSHE [relationships, sex and health education] curriculum will equip children to develop grit and resilience from the get-go, helping them understand that feeling a little down or anxious for a while is normal and nothing to worry about.
'With mental health, just like physical health, prevention is better than cure – which is why we are also making sure there is access to mental health support in every school and reducing child poverty with more free school meals, delivering on our Plan for Change to give every child the best start in life.'
The number of 16 to 24-year-olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) has surged to a near-decade high of a million.
Last week, a report warned that a sharp rise in teenagers and young adults on sickness benefits for mental health problems was behind the trend.
It has prompted concerns that teaching children about mental health has led to the every day ups and downs of life becoming over-medicalised.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
10 minutes ago
- BBC News
Mental health safe haven opens in Wallsend
Medical bosses have opened a third mental health safe haven to provide support to people in their Anchorage, has been opened in Wallsend, North Tyneside, by the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Everyturn Mental centres were recently opened in Ashington and Newcastle, while a fourth is planned to be launched in Whitehaven, Cumbria, later this Mental Health's senior development manager, Samantha Kitula, said the charity's existing sites had shown how "vital" community-based services were to residents. "They are not only helping local people access practical mental health in the right place at the right time, but also easing pressures on other NHS services," she said."We hope that our continued work with our partners, including the NHS, local council, and local charity and community organisations will help ensure that nobody struggles alone." Wide-ranging services The Anchorage is located on Park Road and its name was chosen by residents to reflect the area's maritime heritage and the emotional and practical support it would ICB's chief delivery officer, Levi Buckley, said increasing the range of NHS mental health services in the region would allow people to get the right support when they needed it."Safe havens offer not just help in a crisis, but also support with the problem that may have caused it, like housing, money, drugs or alcohol," he said. The centre was opened with funding from the ICB and North Tyneside council's elected mayor, Karen Clark, said: "As well as offering practical support, care and understanding, the launch of a service like this on a high street is breaking the stigma that mental health struggles should be kept hidden." Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Difficult' state of NHS maternity care due to Tory inaction, inquiry head says
One of the UK's most senior midwives has said inaction by the previous government over maternity care failures has led to the 'difficult' situation in wards across England and a rise in reports of birth trauma. Donna Ockenden, who is leading the biggest inquiry in NHS history into maternity failures in Nottingham, said the Conservatives had been given a 'blueprint' for how to improve maternity services but that it had not been implemented. 'I think the current government has inherited a really, really difficult picture around perinatal care, birth care and increasing reports of birth trauma. If only the previous government had done what it said it would do, that inheritance would have been very different,' she said. Ockenden is leading a review into maternity services at the Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust, the largest inquiry into a single service in the history of the NHS, with 2,406 affected families taking part. The findings will be published in June 2026. She expressed frustration over the slow pace of change after her report on the Shrewsbury and Telford maternity scandal, which found that 300 babies died or were left brain-damaged as a result of inadequate care. 'We published [that report] in March 2022 and there were 22 immediately essential actions, as well as hundreds of actions for the NHS trust,' she said. 'But with the chaos that followed in the year before the general election, things got lost and we are not as far ahead with those immediately essential actions as we should be.' Guardian analysis has found that the NHS is facing a £27bn bill for maternity failings in England since 2019, significantly more than the health service's approximately £18bn budget for newborns in that time. Ockenden said the figures left her 'deeply concerned', and she stressed that the cost of avoidable maternity harm was felt across 'mental health, other health services, the economy, the wider community, relationships, whole families and careers'. 'This is not the way it should be. I would absolutely not say that families do not deserve compensation when they have a poor outcome, but rather that if the money was invested upfront into making the service safer, then we could make significant strides towards reducing this very significant harm,' she said. She said maternity wards were also dealing with problems caused by high levels of poverty across the country. 'There are a number of families, mothers and children living in destitution – which sounds very Victorian, but I do see examples of that. I hear about it from across the country and I see examples of real deprivation in Nottinghamshire,' she said. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'Maternity services are not an island. What comes in the front door of a maternity unit is that which is out there on our streets, whether that's women living in refugee status, in homeless hostels, women who come to antenatal clinics hungry because it's a choice between giving their children something for breakfast or [the women] eating.' Last month, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, criticised what he described as 'the normalisation of deaths of women and babies' and said: 'We have women who are classed as having a normal birth still leaving traumatised and scarred.' He announced a national investigation into NHS maternity services in England, along with a national maternity and neonatal taskforce comprising a panel of experts and bereaved families. Ockenden said the news was 'encouraging' and that 'hearing, amplifying and acting upon family voices must be the golden thread that runs through it all'. 'It is my hope that the changes outlined in these plans improve perinatal services today and in the future, and drastically reduce the risk of harm. Women and families deserve safe maternity care, always,' she said.
Telegraph
27 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Fat jab makers bet on NHS to be role model for the world
Britain is too fat. One in four people is classed as obese and, on average, they will live nine years less than if they were a healthy weight. They are three times more likely to develop colon cancer and five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. Such statistics are not just a crisis in national health, they are also an economic nightmare for the NHS. 'Obesity has doubled since the 1990s and costs our NHS £11bn a year, triple the budget for ambulance services,' Health Secretary Wes Streeting said last month. 'Unless we curb the rising tide of cost and demand, the NHS risks becoming unsustainable.' It is a threat that the Government is taking seriously, with a new ambition to tackle the problem once and for all. 'We now have the science, technology, and knowledge to end the obesity epidemic, if we seize this opportunity,' Streeting says. A crucial part of the plan is the wide rollout of weight-loss injections which, up until this point, have largely been reserved for those who can afford them. The Government instead wants fat jabs to be available 'based on need and not the ability to pay' and is testing new approaches to speed up the rollout of obesity medicines. Public health officials are not the only ones watching closely. At Danish giant Novo Nordisk, which makes obesity jab Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic, which can be used off-label for weight loss, executives are eager to know what ministers' next step will be. Sebnem Avsar Tuna, its UK chief, says that the Government's plans could prove a game-changer for Novo Nordisk, showing the benefits of these medicines to the world. 'I think there's a big opportunity for the UK to be a role model,' she says. 'We just need to speed up in terms of getting into the actions, so it's not just on paper ... This is what needs to be shown, at the population health scale, to the entire world: what could be the outcome in a real-world setting.' Test case for the world In other words, Britain could be the test case for the world. If Wegovy can dramatically improve Britain's health – and cut costs – then surely other countries will follow. The Government says it is exploring whether it could bring in a new payment model for weight-loss treatments, so that it would pay pharmaceutical companies based on how well their drugs made the nation healthier. For now, details over the Government's plans remain sparse. The fat jab plans are part of a wider obesity strategy, which also includes curbing calories in supermarkets and getting the country exercising. Ministers have yet to publish a comprehensive strategy. The pharmaceutical industry is not yet clear on which weight-loss drugs could be offered more broadly, nor how they will be rolled out to patients or whether weight limits guiding who can qualify for the jabs will be softened. So far only Eli Lilly's skinny jab Mounjaro is offered on the NHS through GPs. Novo's obesity jab is currently just available through specialist weight management clinics on the public health service, although can be bought privately. Still, both jabs have strict requirements over who is eligible. A person would need to have a BMI of over 40 – classing them as severely obese – as well as at least four of five specific health conditions, which include type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea, to qualify for a weight loss jab when seeking the treatment through a GP. There are concerns that current limits means the drugs are too restricted. 'We should be doing it for people who are becoming obese,' says one government adviser. 'That way, we can get them down to something that looks close to a normal range and then they can go back to work and start paying taxes.' Old habits die hard However, there are concerns that public health officials may resist a broad roll-out of the fat jabs after years where obesity was viewed as a behavioural issue, not something to be treated with medicine. 'The problem is this is very contrary to the status quo in this field, which is: we think you should stop eating, and then you won't be as fat,' the adviser says. There is a 'culture war within the health system between the old school public health doctors who say it's all about behavioural change, and the people who say, 'Hang on a minute, we haven't done so bad with statins, we should do the same with obesity''. 'Wes is probably more inclined to go for the latter view. The trouble is, Wes is not making the decisions. It's being made by a whole load of old-school doctors.' Drug bosses are anxious to see any signs of progress. 'We just need to speed up in terms of getting it done,' says Avsar Tuna. A speedy roll-out could provide not just a boost for Britain's health but also a shot in the arm for Novo Nordisk, which has been struggling in the US. It has faced weaker demand for Wegovy after a boom in cheap replica fat jabs. In May it blamed the copycat drugs – which were allowed by US regulators because of supply issues at Novo Nordisk – for forcing it to slash sales and profit forecasts. Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen was unexpectedly ousted as chief executive at the same time. The arms race in weight loss Regulators have since banned the cheap replicas. Still, it is facing a more existential threat in the form of rival Eli Lilly, amid growing uptake of the US company's Mounjaro weight-loss jab. In a recent head-to-head trial, Mounjaro beat Novo's Wegovy for weight-loss. Barclays analyst Emily Field says she has heard anecdotally that patients prefer Mounjaro too. 'When you look at the side effects in terms of patients that discontinue the drug because they're not feeling well, the two drugs look very similar,' she says. 'But when you actually talk to doctors, they disagree with that. They say that patients just feel better on the Lilly drug.' Novo Nordisk has been racing to develop new medicines to show it can compete, though investors are not entirely convinced. Its share price is down more than 50pc over the past year. Field says the company was 'really hampered' by the fact it was hit by shortages last year. Avsar Tuna says the company has enough capacity to meet demand. 'I can say that we don't have any supply challenges,' she says. If the NHS were to rapidly step up orders, she believes Novo Nordisk could deliver. 'I think it's a positive problem to look at,' Avsar Tuna says. 'If the NHS really comes back and says, tomorrow, I want X number of products from you to be able to give it all to patients, that would be a good dream to have.' Whether the call will come is another matter. Government advisers remain concerned that public health chiefs will try to stand in the way of a sweeping roll-out. 'If you ask me, they're in a bit of a muddle about these drugs,' says one insider. Still, Streeting is clearly convinced that they are the answer to Britain's weight problems. 'This Government is determined to bring revolutionary modern treatments to everyone who needs them, not just those who can afford to pay,' the Health Secretary said last month. 'There can be no doubt that these drugs will support our shift from sickness to prevention and be a game-changer for millions.'
