Mental Health Parity: Progress or Pipe Dream? - a podcast by BBC Radio 4

In 2015, reporter Adrian Goldberg investigated the state of England's mental health provision and measured the promise of equal treatment for psychiatric patients against the reality on the wards of psychiatric hospitals and in the community. The notion of "parity of esteem" has been enshrined in law in 2012, and has been promoted by successive Prime Ministers, but was found in many areas to be sadly lacking.

So, two years on what progress has been made? And what more needs to be done to help patients in crisis?Adrian talks to former NHS executive Lord Crisp, nurses and the families of those who have lost their loved ones as a result of failures in the system. Are mental health patients still regarded as equal but somehow different to those with physical ailments.

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