Last time I wrote about how, at a national level, we are living through an ever-deepening mental health crisis.

The issues around the lack of parity between mental health and physical health are systemic and need urgently addressing.

One example that frequently frustrates me is that, as an employer, you are quite rightly specifically required by law to have physical first aid provision in place as part of the Health & Safety Act 1984, but there is no specific requirement to provide mental health first aid provision.  

Ensuring that people have the basic training to clean and bandage a cut that will stop bleeding and prevent infection is no less important than ensuring you have people trained to talk to someone who shows of distress, which could stop a panic attack and potentially prevent suicide.  I am proud that Norwich Theatre has equal numbers of first aiders to mental health first aiders.

This is a national issue, but at a local and regional level, I have no hesitation in adding my voice to the chorus of people calling for further and more radical interventions in order to achieve major improvement in NHS mental health care in Norfolk & Suffolk.

Too many people in this region cannot rely on support in their mental health management, protection, and healing, and they should be able to.

My job is about sharing and telling stories and I have recently heard many personal stories of past and current mental health patient experiences in this region that utterly shock and horrify me. 

We cannot change past institutional failure but we also cannot allow it to be accepted and normalised, nor can we bury our heads.  

What is consistently evident through the stories I have heard is that so many of these individuals feel they have no choice other than to accept failure. 

So many mental health conditions stem from past trauma. To be failed when seeking help from those who should provide it, is nothing short of re-traumatisation. This is simply unacceptable.

It was harrowing to have this explained to me like this: 

“If I had been diagnosed with cancer, I’d have an open-ended treatment pathway that was about doing everything possible to keep me alive and protect my quality of life in the process. 

“It would be offered without question and time-limit. 

“I have a diagnosed complex personality disorder, which makes preventing suicide a daily task for me. 

“I know there is less research about treating personality disorders than cancer, but why is provision of my treatment not guaranteed and always a question of funding? 

“It feels they’ve accepted that failing to keep me alive is OK. 

“I can’t personally control this, like people can’t personally control having cancer in their body, but I seem to be expected to.”

This is a story I have invited key people from the regional statutory mental health sector to come and hear directly and in full in the safe space that Norwich Theatre’s venues provide. 

I hope they come, but in any case, this is one of many stories that must and will be told more widely. 

We will do this because more radical change is needed if (as the Princess of Wales put it so powerfully) we are going to see our health as being intrinsically and equally about our “mind, body and spirits”.

Stephen Crocker is chief executive and creative director of Norwich Theatre