Rethink: Severe Mental Illness Cuts Lives by 15-20 Years — SkimNews
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- Rethink Mental Illness calculated that adults under 75 referred to specialist mental health services are 4.8 times more likely to die before 75 than the general population, with starkest risks from liver disease (6.3x), respiratory illness (6x), cardiovascular disease (3.8x), cancer (2.3x) and suicide (14.6x).
- Deaths from cancer and cardiovascular disease among working-age adults with mental illness hit their highest levels since records began in 2022-2024, each exceeding 24,000 deaths, according to the NHS data analysis.
- Physical conditions — cancer, cardiovascular disease, liver disease and respiratory illness — accounted for 56.5% of all deaths among 18 to 74 year olds with severe mental health problems in England during 2022-2024, while suicide comprised 7%.
- The charity pinpoints "diagnostic overshadowing" — where physical symptoms are wrongly attributed to mental illness — alongside poverty, poor housing, higher smoking rates, medication-linked weight gain, physical inactivity and fragmented care as drivers of the gap.
- Mark Winstanley, CEO of Rethink, called it "a scandal" and urged the new cross-government mental health strategy to mandate physical health checks, mental-health-informed interventions and peer support for patients.
- Prof Subodh Dave, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said evidence-based solutions like smoking cessation and routine physical health checks already exist but "concerted action" to prevent premature deaths is missing.
- The Department of Health and Social Care said it is developing a modern service framework and opening 100 new community mental health centres as part of an upcoming mental health strategy, responding ahead of an independent review of mental health, autism and ADHD expected this week.
Why it matters: The report lands days before the government's independent review of mental health, autism and ADHD, handing campaigners a concrete statistical case for mandating physical health checks and integrated care. For the NHS, it reframes tens of thousands of deaths (56.5% from physical disease among 18-74 year olds with severe mental illness) as a systemic failure of fragmented services rather than individual misfortune.
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