I don’t know what is meant by abysmally long but it seems they are trying to rectify some of the shortcomings. It’s certainly better than nothing at all and I would hope if you’re imminently suicidal that that would put you in the urgent category though: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-people-patients-mi...
Abysmally long means 1 year plus to get an appointment. And you are usually only eligible for a limited course of treatment...if you are fortunate enough to get treatment, most people don't get treatment at all because there aren't the resources (you will get referred to a nurse within your GP, who will have done a few days training on basic advice). If you have anxiety or even something like autism, it can be impossible to get a diagnosis (and btw, this isn't just mental health...I have a physical illness, I have been waiting roughly two years for treatment and I expect I will be waiting at least another year or two...this is something that impacts my quality of life daily, not fatal but annoying enough).
If you are imminently suicidal, you can be hospitalised but there is little to no support outside of that. Bluntly, there are a lot imminently suicidal people and limited resources. If you attempt to commit suicide and are unsuccessful, that wouldn't speed up the process.
Also, it is worth saying the rate of suicide in Scotland is very high. I live in a small place in Scotland with essentially no poverty, and there are still 10 or so suicides every year. I know someone who works as a psychologist within the NHS in Dundee (probably one of the worst cities globally for suicide/deaths of despair), and it is totally out of control. There isn't sufficient funding, and there is no way to acquire sufficient funding...it isn't possible (and btw, it isn't just suicide...heavy drug use in Scotland has been an issue for many decades).
Yes, but it is prohibitively expensive for most people (ironically because the market is quite small...everyone tries to go through the NHS).
The level of underfunding is, however, such that mental health providers are a huge part of the private health sector: Priory Group is a very big one.
Another factor is that a lot of training for psychologists is paid by the NHS, and funding for training has been going down everywhere (even in Scotland, which has a left-wing govt running the NHS).
It is just a resources problem. Even in the private sector, there isn't a supply response to higher prices. Ironically, the UK has lots of people who do undergrad Psychology, just none of them actually go on to practice because entry is so tightly controlled (for some reason, the NHS in Scotland is attempting to train nurses to do psychology with a couple of days training...that is going as well as you can imagine).
That is already happening. The NHS is paying the private sector to perform operations due to long wait times (it will take half a decade for the waiting list to go down)...but these are usually the same NHS doctors, working in the same hospitals...they are just being paid 3x the price, it is the worst of all worlds (doctors are an extremely powerful lobbying group in the UK, they have tightly controlled entry to the industry so you have doctors making base £150-200k part-time on the NHS, then topping up with another £200-300k with private sector work...it is chaos).
I understand no-one in the US wants to hear it...the UK system doesn't work (fully public health doesn't work, almost no countries in Europe with good healthcare have it, Australia is very similar to the UK, introduced private healthcare...their results are miles, miles, miles ahead).
Here in South Africa the private healthcare system is excellent. There's also public health care which is good in some places, atrocious in other. If you've got medical insurance you're good.
