Meditation must be available on the NHS, says Mental Health Foundation

The Mental Health Foundation, has today released a report calling for people who suffer repeated episodes of depression to be offered Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a clinically approved treatment based on meditation techniques.

National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance for the NHS has recommended MBCT for recurrent depression since 2004.  However, the Be Mindful report reveals that five years on, just 1 in 5 GPs say they can access the treatment for their patients and only 1 in 20 prescribe MBCT regularly.

MBCT is proven to cut relapse rates in half for those who experience more than two episodes of depression. Recurrent depression is extremely common, with 50% of sufferers having more than one episode.  After the second and third episode, the risk of relapse rises even higher to 70% and then 90%. 

The Mental Health Foundation is calling for the NICE clinical guidelines for depression to be fully implemented, and for all patients with recurrent depression to be offered MBCT. The treatment consists of an eight week course in mindfulness meditation, alongside elements of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and yoga.

The number of prescriptions made each year for antidepressants in England has doubled in a decade, reaching 36 million in 20083. The Be Mindful report found that three-quarters (75%) of GPs have prescribed medication to people with long term depression believing another treatment would have been more appropriate.

The charity argues that MBCT would be a valuable alternative to antidepressants for GPs and patients. A large majority (72%) of GPs believe mindfulness meditation would help their patients who have mental health problems while nearly all (93%) think there should be greater availability of other effective treatments for recurrent depression, in addition to medication.

The Be Mindful report says that the training and development needed to increase the availability of MBCT could be achieved as part of the government’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, which is already funded until 2011.

Dr Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said: “Mindfulness-based therapy could be helping to prevent thousands of people from relapsing into depression every year.  This would have huge knock on benefits both socially and economically, making it a sensible treatment to be making available, even at a time when money is short within the NHS.  Depression tends to come back for many people, with the odds of further bouts increasing each time. A single episode is serious enough but having the illness return year after year can have a devastating impact of people’s jobs, relationships, and their chances in life generally. 

The Be Mindful report also outlines the potential of mindfulness approaches for the treatment and management of many other mental health problems, including eating disorders, anxiety problems and psychosis. 

Find out more at www.bemindful.co.uk – a new website dedicated to mindfulness

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