Members of Unite the Community Union - Lisnaskea joined with Participation and Practice of Rights (PPR) at the headquarters of the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) in Belfast last Thursday to protest against the lack of mental health counselling provided by GPs.

The #123GP campaign handed over a petition to the HSCB, calling on them to immediately address the woefully inadequate funding for in-house provision of counselling in GP practices.

Mental health service users and carers were joined by others including counsellors, mental health charities and GPs, when they presented the Board chairperson Dr. Ian Clements with the list of over 1,800 signatures. The #123GP campaign is calling for three specific improvements in the provision of mental health care by GPs, namely provision of counselling, mental health training for GPs and the employment of a mental health worker as part of the primary care team.

Responsibility for implementing changes to the first of these, the provision of counselling, rests with the HSCB.

As the first port of call for anybody concerned about their health, GPs have a vital role to play in the prevention, detection and treatment of mental ill health. Around 40 per cent of people who attend their GP do so for mental health problems ranging from anxiety and depression to eating disorders and PTSD.

For many of these people, counselling offers an effective, low cost form of treatment.

However, the #123GP campaign says it has uncovered “shocking information” via the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act that shows that the average amount of money allocated by the HSCB to GPs per patient is just £2.29.

Funding allocated for 2018/19 also saw a 10 per cent reduction, from £1,6million in 2016/17 to £1.4million in 2017/18; this at a time when rates of mental ill health and suicide in Northern Ireland are rising.

Additional information obtained through FOI indicates that only 67 per cent of all GPs currently apply for HSCB funding, which would appear to be at least in part related to the funding model. This means that in practice patients face a post code lottery in accessing counselling through their GP.

Karen McGuigan, a member of the #123GP campaign stated: “We were totally shocked to discover that the amount of money HSCB puts into the counselling pot for GPs to draw down from is the equivalent of the price of an ice-cream - £2.29.”

“The majority of people who attend their GP for mental health problems tell us that they would like to be offered the chance to talk to somebody, but for many people this isn’t happening. We hope that the Board will meet with our campaign and listen to what we have to say – we are speaking from experience.”

In a survey of 200 GPs carried out in England in 2013, two thirds of GPs said they were forced to prescribe medication to patients with depression when they felt that talking therapies would be more effective, due to the long waiting lists for therapy.

Northern Ireland some patients don’t even having the option of being placed on a waiting list. Alongside this lack of provision, Northern Ireland topped a survey of 23 countries for its prescribing rates for anti-depressants, with rates being double those in similar regions of England, underscoring the urgency of the current lack of counselling provision being addressed.

As a first step in addressing this issue the #123GP campaigners previously offered to meet with the HSCB, an offer rejected by the Board.

Campaigners last week called again on the HSCB to convene an urgent meeting with them to explore the issues and proposed solutions.

John McCluskey of the Unite the Community Union - Lisnaskea group said: “I was very impressed by the level of support and knowledge about our GP closure in Roslea. As a result of attending the protest in Belfast a number of qualified medical personnel would attend any public meetings in Roslea to help resolve this issue,” he added.

“A number of other activities were being planned to further highlight the wrongful closure of the Roslea GP surgery.”