Millions of patients in England face dangerously long waits for mental health care unless ministers draw up a recovery plan to tackle a second "pandemic" of depression, anxiety, psychosis and eating disorders.
The Covid crisis has led to a rise in the number of people with mental health problems, with 1.6 million waiting for treatment and another 8 million who cannot get on the waiting list but would benefit from support, the heads of the NHS Confederation and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have
In some parts of the country, specialist mental health services are so overwhelmed they are so overwhelmed they are even the most serious cases of patients at risk of suicide.
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is facing pressure to quickly develop a comprehensive plan to respond to the soaring demand for mental health care.
The publication of the long-awaited elective recovery plan this month has set out how the back-up of people needing planned surgical procedures is to be addressed.
We are moving towards a new phase of needing to live with coronaviruses but for a worrying number of people, the virus is leaving a growing legacy of poor mental health that services are not equipped to deal with adequately at present.
With projections showing that 10 million people in England, including 1.5 million children and teenagers, will need new or additional support for their mental health over the next three to five years it is no wonder that health leaders have dubbed this the second pandemic. The crisis of this scale deserves sustained attention from the government in the same way we have seen with the elective care backlog.
A major recruitment drive and an expansion of the National Health Service's estates for specialist mental health care are some of the recommendations made by the National Health Service Confederation. One in 10 consultant psychiatrists are unfilled.
The president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists said that a fully funded mental health recovery plan is needed to ensure that everyone with a mental illness can get the help they need.
Millions of children, young people and adults are seeking help from mental health services that are under-resourced. The situation is not stable. The government can't afford to neglect mental health recovery.
A focus on providing early support for children and young people with mental health problems is one of the key elements of a recovery plan. There has been a significant increase in the number of children and teenagers referred for urgent support for eating disorders since the start of the Pandemic.
The impact of the Pandemic on young people's mental health cannot be overstated, said OllyParker, the head of external affairs at the charity YoungMinds.
Dr David Turner, a family doctor in Hertfordshire, decided to speak out for the first time in his 25-year career because he was so concerned about the situation.
Turner said access to child and adolescent mental health services was never great before but is nowappalling. He said that patients were at risk because of a spike in demand and under investment.
Patients with serious mental health disorders who have been referred by their GP for specialist treatment are a new trend. GP's are being used to carry out weekly weight checks and blood tests, and monitor vital organs of patients with Anorexia nervosa, some of whom are at risk of suicide or starvation.
Dr Phil Moore, a GP and chair of the National Health Service Confederation's mental health, learning disability and autism system group, said he was concerned that patients could end up in crisis because of the mounting number of care waiting rooms.
The Department of Health and Social Care has been contacted.
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