World Mental Health Day: Leeds charities warn of pandemic's 'dramatic impact' on mental health

The warning comes as the globe unites for World Mental Health Day today - an annual awareness-raising campaign which this year is timelier than ever as the impact of the pandemic on people’s mental health runs deep across the city.

Mental health experts in Leeds have told the Yorkshire Evening Post the situation has been deteriorating since the pandemic broke out - intensifying the issues for those with existing problems but also affecting others for the first time.

Alison Lowe, chief executive of mental health charity Touchstone, said Covid-19 and lockdown has had a “dramatic impact” on the health and wellbeing of people they work with.

“Not only are people reporting increased loneliness and isolation, the effects of furloughing, redundancy and loss of job security are massively impacting on mental wellbeing. People who were just managing are now in desperate straits, with no end in sight.”

Alarming figures released last month by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found Yorkshire has the highest suicide rates in the country for men and women.

While that data relates to 2019 deaths, Helen Kemp, chief executive of Leeds Mind, said: “It’s a worrying trend, considering the difficulties that this year has brought.”

She said: “While Covid-19 has been a physical health crisis, we are now faced with a tsunami of mental health repercussions, “ adding: “The pandemic has really brought home the fact that everyone has mental health, just as everyone has physical health.”

A recent survey by Leeds Mind found 60 per cent of people in Yorkshire say their mental health has worsened in lockdown and just over one in five adults with no previous history are now reporting their mental health is “poor or very poor”.

A similar result was found at Caring for Life, a Christian charity which supports vulnerable and at-risk people and hosts therapeutic activities at its site in north Leeds.

A survey there revealed 61 per cent of the people they help had seen their mental health issues “badly exacerbated” by the pandemic and up to 14 per cent who didn’t previously have mental health issues were now presenting with them.