The DUP and Plaid Cymru have released their manifestos, with both parties reflecting key BACP General Election asks.

The DUP promised to “continue increasing investment in psychological therapies to significantly improve waiting times”.

This pledge reflects our call for urgent investment in therapies to tackle Northern Ireland’s mental health crisis, which was in our manifesto shared with all parties across the province.

Critical issue

Steve Mulligan, our Four Nations Lead, said: “We are pleased to see a strong commitment by the DUP on this critical issue.

"Northern Ireland has the worst mental health in the UK, with prevalence rates estimated to be around 25% higher than in England, and more people have taken their own lives in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday agreement than were killed in political violence during the troubles.

"We need to urgently see this investment going to the front line of mental health support," Steve added.

Plaid Cymru promised to “invest in improving community mental health services, including creating more counsellors so that, where appropriate, alternatives to medication are available in all communities”.

BACP members

Steve added: "We were pleased to see a clear commitment to counselling throughout Plaid's manifesto, and their plans to further extend the critical role that BACP members play across a range of settings, from community heath to people-centred support in the criminal justice and rehabilitation settings,  as well as supporting victims of violence and crime." 

The Brexit Party also released what it has called its “contract with the people”. However, the publication did not go into detail about counselling, psychotherapy and mental health.

We’ve contacted all parties with our key manifesto asks. They have been published as part of our new dedicated election web pages.

The web pages include information on what you can do to engage your local General Election candidates to help us protect and promote counselling across the country.

This includes some handy guides, alongside questions that you can put to your election candidate, either in writing or if they knock on your door.

And if you are on social media, use the hashtag #StandUpForCounselling to join in the conversation and see what fellow members are saying.

We will be publishing the commitments relating to counselling and mental health from all parties as announcements are made and manifestos are published.

Read our response to the Green Party, Liberal Democrat and Labour Party manifestos, which were published earlier this week