Fry and Campbell join forces to call for more money for mental health

Former Labour Party spin doctor Alistair Campbell and actor Stephen Fry have joined a campaign calling for a trebling of spending on research into mental-health problems over the next five years. The Research Mental Health Initiative pointed out that spending on mental-health research has remained virtually unchanged since 2004-5 at £74m, a figure dwarfed by spending on cancer research. In 2004-5 cancer and mental-health problems each accounted for about 15% of the disease burden in the U.K. but cancer received 25% of health research funding compared to only 5% for mental health. The campaign is calling for an increase in research funding to £200m by 2014.

You can find out more about this initiative at

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/10/14/112857/stephen-fry-and-alastair-campbell-join-mental-health-campaign.html