Wes Streeting: there is overdiagnosis of mental health conditions

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/16/wes-streeting-there-is-overdiagnosis-of-mental-health-conditions

Posted by Yogizer

13 comments

  2. I mean, the full quote is a bit better… but it does seem like the evidence for overdiagnosis boils down to “every knows that…”.

    All disability is produced in a social context – and it was generally understood in previous decades that the Labour party existed largely to produce a better society. I guess that’s a “nice to have” that we can’t afford right now.

  3. The thing is he’s right. People are taking advantage of the system and the sympathy that comes with it now.

    I have people I work with who are 40+ y/o and claim they can’t work shifts longer than 6h’s because they get ‘anxious’ about it and it ‘affects their mental health’.

    I’m speaking here as a recipient who greatly appreciates MH services for those _truly_ in need. I went through the system for PTSD, doing 60h weeks during the whole process because I didn’t qualify for assistence. I felt incredibly anxious, constantly, but I also felt responsible for myself and my future.

    The services are there to help, NOT provide. It’s up to the individual to put in the work and for the services to assist where families and friends are failing to do so.

  4. The fact that he hasn’t been sectioned yet surely indicates an underdiagnosis.

  5. There are more tablets available for previously undiagnosed conditions so doctors can prescribe them. Check out the BMA.

  6. This is a touchy subject, but there is a feeling that mental health is easy to fake. Things are a bit more complicated than that, but Reddit cannot handle complicated discussions. Its always you’re either on Team A or Team B and so there can be no rational debate about anything.

    Okay that’s my quota for stating the bleeding obvious for today.

  7. From personal experience I’ve known a lot of people taking cocaine which leads to their poor mental health. Not everyone obviously. We should all take care of our health, physical and mental.

  9. no shit, anybody who doesn’t want to work can self-sign a mental problem and keep getting paid.

    still, i imagine tons of people read this as “wes streeting says mental health conditions don’t exist”

  10. There is one less diagnosis than ideal, yours,you pillock .

  11. Fix the country. Tax fairly, stop tax evasion and make ordinary people’s lives better and guess what will improve? Mental health.

  12. Doubtful.

    Is their alot of people self diagnosed with stuff? Sure.

    Given the time it takes it get mental health appointments and diagnosis in some areas, I don’t think loads of people are going to ‘fake’ it for an easier life.

    Last time I checked a standard GP appointment near me was about a 2 week wait, a booking with a therapist or counselling was about 6months and to get diagnosed with mental disability was about 10 years.

    Add on how the mainstream mindset on alot of mental health issues is still ‘go for a walk and have a cup of tea’ or how people think getting nervous is the same as actual anxiety, or how liking stuff in order is the same as OCD and the issue is more complex than I think a random career politician can understand.

  13. Mark Fisher called this the “privatisation of stress” – neoliberalism strips life of all meaning and leaves people without agency, control or purpose; this leads to an explosion in mental health issues as people are ground up and burnt out by a machine that’s designed to maximise profit at all costs. But this is inconvenient to the people who control the machine as they need an obedient and compliant workforce, so ghouls like Streeting are wheeled out to sell and push the message the mental health issues are a personal moral failing rather than an endemic societal issue, and remind the proles that, if they fail to do their bit to ensure that the shareholders get their dividend and the management team get their bonus, there will be sever consequences.

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