Gov’t plans campaign on mental health

The Government is planning a multi-million pound advertising campaign aimed at ending the stigma surrounding the issue of mental health.

The move forms part of an initiative announced this week by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, to include a wide-ranging package of measures that will aim to eliminate discrimination faced by adults suffering from mental illness.

The Government will start trawling agencies to create a campaign later this year.

A department spokesman says: “The Government knows this is the single largest social barrier that needs to be tackled and the anti-stigma campaign is planned as a sustained programme to challenge the issues surrounding mental health. The details for a TV campaign need to be worked out, but we have a provision to launch an ad campaign to tackle the issue.”