Five 'systemic shocks' drove lasting UK mental health decline — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Dr Annie Jeffery's UCL team analyzed UK Household Longitudinal Study data from 87,857 people aged 16+ (collected yearly from 2009-2024) and identified five "systemic shocks" — Brexit, two Covid lockdowns, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the 2022 mini-budget — that each caused immediate, serious mental health damage that has persisted.
- The June 2016 Brexit referendum triggered an increase in mental ill-health equivalent to roughly 120,000 more people overall seeking a GP's help for depression, measured via the GHQ-12 screening tool.
- The first Covid lockdown in March 2020 had the largest impact of any single event, equating to about 900,000 more people in total visiting a GP with depression symptoms — far exceeding the Brexit shock.
- Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 drove roughly 15,000 more Britons per month to seek GP help for depression, while Liz Truss's September 2022 mini-budget added about 23,000 per month.
- NHS mental health contacts in England nearly doubled from 2.64 million in 2016-17 to 4.13 million in 2024-25, and monthly new referrals jumped 47% from 360,000 in April 2022 to 530,000 in July 2026.
- Prof Peter Fonagy's long-awaited government-commissioned inquiry into rising mental illness, ADHD and autism diagnoses is due for publication Friday, as a record 2.8 million Britons are out of work due to illness and almost 1 million 16-24 year-olds are Neets.
- The Centre for Mental Health estimates mental ill-health costs the UK £300bn a year, and the study's authors and external experts including Andy Bell and Tom Pollard of Mind linked rising distress to compounded shocks layered on years of austerity.
Why it matters: The study turns vague talk of a "mental health crisis" into a quantified ledger: specific government decisions and global events each left a measurable scar on the population, and those scars never healed. With NHS mental health contacts nearly doubling since 2016-17 and 2.8 million Britons now too sick to work, policymakers weighing a £300bn annual bill can no longer treat Britain's mental health decline as ambient background — the data traces it directly to identifiable shocks.
Ask SkimNews
