Wes Streeting: there is overdiagnosis of mental health conditions
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/16/wes-streeting-there-is-overdiagnosis-of-mental-health-conditions
Posted by MimesAreShite
Wes Streeting: there is overdiagnosis of mental health conditions
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/16/wes-streeting-there-is-overdiagnosis-of-mental-health-conditions
Posted by MimesAreShite
31 Comments
obviously Streeting doesn’t actually know or care whether this is true or not (if anything i expect it’s probably the inverse and mental health conditions remain undiagnosed, but i’m speculating there); the financial straitjacket the government has imposed on itself requires them to treat this conjecture as the truth, so they are. it just demonstrates the complete lack of concern this government has for mental health
Maybe life is just really shitty for a lot of people at the moment?
Maybe, but let’s also remember the well known ‘left handedness’ chart – [https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2021/11/08/rate-of-left-handedness-in-the-us-stigma-society/](https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2021/11/08/rate-of-left-handedness-in-the-us-stigma-society/)
It can be very similar with the ‘rate of discovery’ of various states of the human condition.
When did you get your medical degree, Wes? What’s that? You didn’t? Shut up then.
Maybe leave that to medical professionals to decide, you ghoul.
Mate i know this gets backlash but this is fact . Why the fuck do people diagnosed with mental health need a moterbility car … why are they able to get PIP for things like bed wetting . Its fraud .
Dangerous sweeping statement – I feel there is a strong argument to suggest they are under diagnosed
I think social media plays a big role in it too.
Suddenly a lot of people have conditions such as ADHD which is often not even diagnosed.
There’s an underdiagnosis of Streeting being a cunt.
How can he remain in his position – clearly compromised by funding from healthcare insurance outfits.
https://goodlawproject.org/how-private-health-has-invested-in-wes-streeting/
I really do think we are often guilty medicalising normal reactions to certain life stressors and I suspect that antidepressants are overprescribed. However, these stressors often include things like unsuitable housing, poverty, antisocial behaviour and other social issues, and are essentially due to other systems not working very well…
I think its a bunch of things –
i) Its very easy to diagnose a broad range of issues. But what treatment is there beyond that? The numbers are growing because like every health issue at the moment, people are developing fairly minor issues, and then being abandoned to fester for *years* before any sort of help comes into sight, and then often that help feels like the most tokenistic basic level effort. So of course minor issues grow and grow until they are chronic battles that could well take someone years or even a lifetime to overcome.
ii) Welfare is now too harsh. If you do not have a medical diagnosis for a health condition, you are not getting any additional support. The system will stand back with its arms crossed and watch your life fall to bits and watch you starve. So of course there is a huge incentive to medicalize any and every issue you might have in an effort to game the system that little bit so you keep your head above water. Ironically all this directly coming as a result of the Tories trying so hard to make the system punitive against those who try to game it. Now its so punitive the only way to survive long term is to game it.
iii) And of course fundamentally life has just gotten so much harder post-covid. Huge numbers of people are *massively* burnt out from that period and have had zero respite or breathing space to try and recover. In fact with inflation and stagnant wages many have just seen their worries multiply and grow. I genuinely don’t remember a time like this in the past where every single person in my social circle is just at total burnout levels of exhaustion and feeling like they have no time to do anything but work and keep up a very basic level of self- and house-care. This is not sustainable and we as a society need to be honest with ourselves that the increase in sick and unhappy people is not exactly a surprising result of this.
Oh my God. As a NHS healthcare professional I am incredibly developing a very strong dislike for this man.
He’s a Tory in red. Reprehensible and a traitor to the LGBTQ+ community. Nasty little man.
>I want to follow the evidence
That’s a refreshing change for a politician. What evidence do you have?
>I think definitely there’s an overdiagnosis
Yeah because ignoring mental health problems has famously worked really well in the past
Chatting pure shit, society is literally rotting around us all. Anxiety and depression are peak right now and it’s no surprise. Let alone the misdiagnosed neurodivergent folk who have been struggling for years on the wrong meds.
People are just tired of masking up and pretending everything is ok. News flash bitches, it’s not.
The people that throw a fit at statements like this are the ones who are probably part of the problem.
When you’re feeling down because you’ve had a shit week, that’s not depression or some sort of mental health episode. When you’re dreading going to a job you hate, that’s not mental health related. When you’re anxious, that’s not mental health related.
Years ago, things like being anxious or sad were just anxious or sad. Not you’re not anxious, you have “anxiety”. You’re not sad, you have “depression”.
Life isn’t all rosy. Social media and entertainment paints an idealistic image of life to young people and when they hit the first roadblock they blow it out of proportion and start reaching for some sort of excuse or sympathy.
Can’t come to work because you’ve got a bit of anxiety today? Grow up? It never used to be an excuse and people dealt with it. Now you’ve gotta tread on eggshells when you know people are taking the piss.
Some things like ADHD or Autism are better diagnosed today. But a lot of people try and collect these like badges so they can use it as an excuse for any hurdles in life. You can find “autistic” traits in everyone if you look hard enough. Only some people feel the need to label themselves.
It’s definitely gone too far in that direction. Needs a correction. Needs education. Teach young people that life is full of challenges and sometimes you’ve just gotta overcome it. Feeling anxious for a job interview is a challenge, just do it, don’t use mental health as an excuse to avoid getting a job. I used to feel so anxious I’d make myself sick. I got over it. I used to be scared talking to people at work. I got over it.
“Now, of course, there will be some people because of serious disability or because of chronic illness that can’t be turned around, will not be able to work, and those people need to be supported, to be a springboard back to work.”
um, he’s saying that people who are too ill to work will be supported to go back to work
There was this BBC article not long ago that referenced 2 academic studies looking at resilience in 13-19 year olds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gp19n111vo.amp
Life can be unfair and suck through no fault of your own, its why there is a minimum level of resilience everybody needs to function in this kind of existence. Kids are not learning to be resilient, which means young adults and adults are not resilient because they were never taught how to be.
It’s why so many people hide behind seemingly minor mental health issues, they want to have depression, anxiety etc because it validates their view that they can’t cope with everyday life. They can’t cope because they never learnt how to cope so would rather just say their mentally ill..
[deleted]
It’s medical professionals who diagnose these conditions based on established criteria, not politicians. If a doctor diagnoses someone with diabetes or heart disease, no one questions whether it’s “real”.
Statements like these fuel stigma, making it even harder for people struggling with mental health issues to seek help or be taken seriously. The issue in this situation isn’t whether too many people are being diagnosed—it’s that the system is broken in how it assesses people’s ability to work and access support.
Oh alright. Where did Wes get his degree in medicine, out of interest?
Oh. He’s just another brain-dead Tory wanker. That explains it.
Anyone else remember when Theresa May was PM? For all her many faults she really seemed genuinely personally invested in making prevention and care around mental health a priority. I genuinely can’t believe we finally have a Labour government and the health sec is being such an utter cunt on the topic that it’s got me looking back fondly on those years.
It was actually Laura Kuenssberg who argued that mental illness is overdiagnosed, and Streeting just dropped an “I agree” into his stream of empty babble.
> Asked whether he thought overdiagnosis of some conditions was a problem, he told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “I want to follow the evidence and I agree with that point about overdiagnosis.
> “Here’s the other thing, mental wellbeing, illness, it’s a spectrum and I think definitely there’s an overdiagnosis, but there’s too many people being written off and, to your point about treatment, too many people who just aren’t getting the support they need. So if you can get that support to people much earlier, then you can help people to either stay in work or get back to work.”
From the quotes in this article alone he uses the word “support” six times and never once specifies what that kind of support he’s talking about or how he plans to provide it.
There are also a lot of undiagnosed people who just muddle on. Streeting gunning for low hanging fruit as per David Cameron era Tories.
War on drugs, tough on benefits, tough on immigration.
Tough on tax dodgers? No.
Tough on government corruption? No.
Tough on lobbyists? No.
Same old shite from smarmy slimy poshos in suits.
I have a recognised, diagnosed mental health condition, only diagnosed in my late 30s. It’s cunts like this who make me fear actually telling anyone (which is incredibly helpful) due to worrying about being thought of as having a ‘fashionable’ mental health issue and not being taken seriously, or worse, faking it for some strange clout
Or, the mental health crisis is a symptom of societal decline. [MHF](https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/statistics/relationships-community-statistics#:~:text=People%20who%20are%20more%20socially,who%20are%20less%20well%20connected.) suggests mental illness is more prevalent in people with poor/ no relationships with their family, friends and neighbours.
What are the ruling class doing to foster a sense of community and unity? Rattling sabres? Culture wars?
A right-wing lickspittle cunt will always be a right wing lickspittle cunt.
I’ve got depression but I’d agree. Some people mistake being sad for a mental health condition. They’re not something that really make sense unless you have one. They’re often contradictory and illogical in an individual’s own head. I can’t say I understand how someone with an eating disorder feels about their body or a schizophrenic feels about their hallucinations.
All that being the case, mental health only started being taken seriously after the turn of the century, GPs are uneducated on mental health, psychologists are glorified statisticians and a lot of the medication just doesn’t work for a lot of people.
Wes Streeting, Tory plant that he is, isn’t qualified to make comments on the overdiagnosis of mental health conditions. Most doctors aren’t. Instead of attacking the vulnerable to try and take away benefits for people, under the guise of health reasons, put some investment into actually teaching medical students about something most people find very hard to understand. Put some investment into medical research for better treatments for these conditions. Tackle the root causes of the conditions. People’s financial fears, hopelessness, body image problems.
Mental health problems are foremost caused by society being sick. People feeling hopeless, lonely, insecure, unable to help others. Start fixing the fucking world and all of this stuff starts to fade away.
This is them laying the groundwork for taking benefits away from people based on mental health grounds.
Bloody woke mental health conditions, when I’m stressed I shout and the kids, kick the dog and sink a few tinnies, nothing wrong with my mental health.