We are writing to ask you to reconsider withdrawing funding of mental health organisations in Cornwall. Charities play a crucial role in supporting local people with mental illnesses. Your plans to cut funding to:

Pentreath, Penta Health and Wellbeing, Regain/Nightlink, Carrick Mind, Restormel Mind, Penta Health and Wellbeing, Sea Sanctuary, Women’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, and Cornwall Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre

will have a devastating effect on the wellbeing of children and adults.

Mental health provision in the county is unacceptably low. The community mental health team are underfunded and people with severe mental health problems are often turned away because there is a shortage of resources, such as community psychiatric nurses. As a result, charities are even more crucial than they would otherwise be.

Rethink Cornwall, for example, provides invaluable support for people with severe and enduring mental health problems and group sessions for those affected by a range of conditions. Currently, they work with over 120 clients one-on-one, but thousands of people across Cornwall would benefit from this service. The charity needs more funding, not less. Yet recently, you made the decision to disinvest funding, meaning that Rethink will have to close in March.

The decision to reduce funding appears to be part of an effort to reduce a budget deficit, but funding these services saves the NHS money in the long run. When support is provided for people recovering from mental health illness, it prevents relapses and keeps people with psychosis and depression from needing to use expensive resources such as the emergency services and hospitals.

More importantly, these organisations give sufferers a real chance at a decent quality of life. Without adequate mental health services, some people would not have lives at all.

“In 2013 there were 65 deaths by suicide and injury of undetermined intent registered for residents of Cornwall and Isles of Scilly. This equates to an annual rate of 13.99 per 100,000 population, compared to a national rate for the same year of 10.98 per 100,000.” - Suicide Audit Cornwall & Isles of Scilly prepared by Dr Sara Roberts Consultant in Public Health, 2015.

Most suicides can be prevented and we should be aspiring to eradicate suicide altogether by combining the powers of CMHT, the emergency services, and mental health charities, not weakening any of the services.

If you disinvest funding in mental health support charities, it’s not a case of ‘Will suicide rates increase?’ but ‘When?’. Please reconsider your decision.