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Mental health charity in mission to Westminster

BBC/RICHARD EDWARDS Staff and clients from mental health charity The Big Communi-Tea are waiting on the platform at Selby Station. They are holding a giant cardboard teapot and tea cup.BBC/RICHARD EDWARDS
Staff and clients from mental health charity The Big Communi-Tea on the platform at Selby Station before heading to the House of Commons

Mental health campaigners have taken stark warnings about the funding crisis facing the sector directly to Parliament.

Staff and clients from Selby charity The Big Communi-Tea visited Westminster to pose some "hard questions" to local Labour MP Keir Mather.

The charity provides support and mental health services to people throughout the York and Selby district.

Welcoming the visitors, Mr Mather said: "It is my obligation to work as hard as I can to make sure everyone gets the support they need."

Charity founder John Venable, who led the visit, said it was the "first trip to London for some".

He said: "One client had never been on the Underground before.

"Nobody had been to Parliament before, so it was a great day - and a chance to put some hard questions to our MP."

BBC/RICHARD EDWARDS Big Communi-Tea client Ann Waddington on the train to London. She is sitting in a window seat, smiling, and is wearing a white polo neck and a grey cardigan with a fur-trimmed collar.BBC/RICHARD EDWARDS
Big Communi-Tea client Ann Waddington said mental health had been an issue for her entire life

Ann Waddington, one of the charity's clients who made the trip to London, said mental health had been an issue for her entire life.

Mrs Waddington said: "My dad took his own life when I was 21.

"There was no help then for people like me.

"So I wanted to ask the MP about companionship.

"Seven months after I moved to Selby the lockdown came and I had to isolate.

"To be there, on your own, for all that time, was horrible. It was like being under house arrest.

"I don't know how I got through that time. But I do know I'm still feeling the effects of it."

BBC/RICHARD EDWARDS Big Communi-Tea client Jackie Carroll is standing on the House of Commons terrace in front of the River Thames. The London Eye wheel is in the background. She is wearing a black blouse with gold and white flowers and a gold necklace.BBC/RICHARD EDWARDS
Jackie Carroll said it was "lovely" to walk through the gates into Parliament

Also in Westminster was Jackie Carroll, whose husband has dementia and is being treated for cancer.

She said: "I had never been to London before.

"It was a big thing to go there - it was lovely to walk through those gates into Westminster.

"My husband is in a home. I asked the MP about dementia care - there are not enough care assistants - and it's hard to find a good home.

"There needs to be more support, more money.

"I looked after him for 12 years with his dementia, then we found out he's got cancer.

"I am coping as best I can."

'Amazing work'

Mr Mather said it was "incredibly important" to him to host The Big Communi-Tea's visit to the Commons.

He said: "The amazing work they do deserves to be shared at the highest level, and they came well prepared to ask me some really important questions about mental health provision.

"It is an incredibly important issue, and that provision has been run down over the last 14 years.

"Fundamentally, it is organisations like The Big Communi-Tea which are providing that incredible work right now to give people that crucial support."

The first steps towards reform of mental health services began at the start of this month, when the Labour government put its Mental Health Bill before Parliament.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "We will fix the broken system to ensure we give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health.

"We will recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers to provide faster treatment and ensure people are appropriately discharged and given the right support.”

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