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Cosmo's eating disorders campaign has revealed that many patients with mental health issues such as EDNOS are being turned away from GPs because their condition isn't 'serious' enough. Why do mental health services seem to be the poor relation within the NHS?

First of all, I'm very pleased Cosmopolitan is tackling this. I think one of the problems at the heart of the lack of attention to mental health issues is that people don't see them in the same way that they do physical health issues. People who suffer mental health issues are more likely to die younger, and to have poor physical health, so it doesn't make sense to separate mental and physical health. Health isn't just about your body, it's about your mind, too. We're determined to make changes by driving home the message that mental health problems must be treated equally to physical health problems.

What can be done to change the public's view of the difference between mental and physical health problems?

One in four people will suffer a mental health issue at some point in their lives, which means pretty much every family will be affected. Campaigns like Time To Change, which encourage people to speak out, are doing great things to achieve this, and a magazine like Cosmopolitan, which reaches a huge audience, can play a part by writing about mental health issues and getting people talking about them.

This isn't just an issue for those working in mental health, but also for the wider health and social care system and society as a whole. We all have a role in breaking down the stigma surrounding mental illness. This is an issue the whole population has to get to grips with. Otherwise we risk alienating a wide section of society.

What's being done to change the gap between the way mental and physical health are treated in the NHS?

NHS England have been given a mandate – an instruction from the government – to achieve measurable progress towards parity of esteem, which means treating mental and physical health conditions with equal priority, by 2015. For example, we want to see patients getting timely access to mental health services, and also, of course, to make sure those services are in place, and nearby, for people to access.

As part of your eating disorders campaign, Cosmopolitan said it's possible, with conditions such as eating disorders, for patients to be turned away until their condition is worse – something which wouldn't happen with something like a breast lump – and that's true. But there are some fantastic GPs out there, and it's not their fault they haven't received the correct training.

The government has issued a mandate to Health Education England which will mean health professionals will have to receive training in mental as well as physical health – currently this is optional for GPs, despite the high number of patients they're seeing with mental health issues.

Also, when a patient receiving treatment for something like an eating disorder reaches 18 they face a cliff edge in care. CAMHS [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services] are removed and there's no guarantee they will then be given access to adult services. That's something we want to see changed.

What successes have been achieved towards these goals so far?

We have launched the liaison and diversion scheme, so people suffering episodes of ill mental health do not end up in a police cell. In January we published Closing The Gap, a policy outlining the changes we want to see. We also announced the Crisis Care Concordat to improve crisis care, and restraint guidance to end the use of deliberate, face-down restraint.

Another aim is to give patients more choice. From April this year we've brought in changes meaning patients with mental health issues can now choose where they receive treatment. Formerly, only patients with a physical issue could choose where they received treatment for it – GPs had a list of hospitals they could go to, and they could also choose which GP they saw.

There was concern over recent NHS cuts to mental health services that were higher than cuts to physical health services. How is this affecting the end goal of parity of esteem?

The recent decision on funding levels for mental and physical health by NHS England [1.8% cuts to mental health services versus 1.5% for physical health] disadvantaged mental health. This is unacceptable. I hope the negative press they've received, because of how vocal I and campaigners have been about this decision, will bear fruit.

The more noise people make about decisions like this, the more pressure is put on NHS England to make decisions that are positive for mental health – thanks to the outcry, they'll think carefully before making a decision like that again. We are already seeing many areas deciding not to apply this formula.

You've mentioned patients getting timely access to mental health services, but what counts as 'timely', when patients with eating disorders are currently waiting up to a year for treatment?

The last government set a maximum 18-week waiting time for patients to receive treatment for health issues, but they didn't include mental health in that target. I want to see the development of access or waiting time standards for mental health services as a matter of priority.

The mandate to NHS England makes clear that everyone who needs it should have timely access to services, but achieving parity can't happen overnight – it's a slow process.

To get waiting times for physical health down to 18 weeks we had to start with longer waiting times and gradually reduce them, and we'll have to do the same with mental health.

What will happen if the NHS doesn't fulfil its mandate?

We perform regular assessments to check NHS England are making progress, and if they don't fulfil the mandates we've agreed with them, we will hold them to account to determine what needs to be done to make those changes happen.

So although things aren't going to change overnight, and I can't pull the levers which will affect the whole country all at once, we're certainly heading in the right direction.

Mental health is an issue you're particularly focussed on, which is great – is there a reason it's a cause you're so passionate about?

There was a tragic case in my constituency in Norwich of a young girl, Charlotte Robinson, who died of an eating disorder shortly after getting all As in her A-levels. I started working with the eating disorders charity Beat, who are also based in Norwich, and it's something I genuinely care about. As a Lib Dem you don't expect to get the chance to be a minister, and I'm going to make the most of it…