Actually, ASDA, apologising for that "mental patient" Hallowe'en costume is not enough

So, ASDA thought it was a good idea to put up a gruesome Hallowe'en outfit and bill it as a "mental patient's" outfit.

Gee, thanks. That sort of stereotype of people with mental health problems is why I lost my teens to Depression and a good bit of my 20s to Depression and Anxiety. If it had been easier to talk about these things, maybe, just maybe, I'd have had the help I needed sooner. Encouraging such awful and inaccurate stereotypes is offensive and irresponsible

What gets me is that more than one person must have seen that before it went live. Why did it not ring alarm bells with them? It just shows how deeply prejudices are engrained and how much we still have to do to challenge the stigma of mental illness.

But, anyway, it's fine now. ASDA have apologised and donated a sum to a mental health charity. Actually, not, it's not. They deserve to take some punishment for ever having done it in the first place. It dawned on me that a day's boycott is the very least that they deserve.

With Scottish Mental Health Awareness Week beginning on 4th October, it dawns on me that Saturday 5th might be a good day to ask people not to shop there.

Tesco and Amazon, too, have been guilty of the same sort of thing, so they can share the pain, too. And anyone else who thinks it's ok to cast people with mental illness in that way, making it more difficult for them to seek the help that they need. You worry how your family, your friends, your employer would react enough without these stores planting the ridiculous idea that you're about to run amok with a meat cleaver.

There are times when saying sorry isn't enough, and this is one of them.

"Just listen. You could change a life" See Me Scotland launches new campaign to encourage conversation on mental health

Two guys on a golf course. But they aren't talking about football or beer. It quickly becomes clear that one has been an absolute lifeline to the other, helping him through a period of mental ill health, encouraging him out and being a friend.

That's the ad from See Me Scotland which starts a new campaign to encourage us to ask people how they are feeling and listen to what they have to say about their mental health. A couple of weeks ago, during a debate on mental health at Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference, Lin Macmillan described two occasions in her life when she had been off sick from work. The first was very isolating, nobody came to visit and nobody really knew. The second, the house was filled with flowers and the phone never stopped ringing. One time she had Cancer, the other Depression. Want to take a wild guess which was which?

See Me Scotland's two month campaign, which you can read more about here, includes advertising on buses as well as the tv and radio ads. You might like to take some time to go their audio page and listen to some of the interviews they have done with people.

I'll be following the campaign and you can do so too on Facebook and Twitter.

A disturbing experience....

As I left Wahaca, warm and replete the other night, I stopped to Foursquare in (you can't inside as it's in the basement). I heard  voice behind me asking if those were avocados in the window.

I turned to see a young man smoking a cigarette and carrying a rucksack. He told me he was on his way to see if he could get into the homeless shelter down the road. He was, he said, suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia and would probably be sectioned. He rolled up his sleeves to show me wounds on his arms. He had, he said, been begging outside one of London's top hotels that day and had made £18.

Over the next 20 minutes or so, in that dark street, he told me a lot of things about his life. Some made sense, others maybe less so. He told me his name but it wouldn't be fair to tell you what it is, or too many details about his life without his permission.

What was clear, though, was that this was an incredibly vulnerable young man. He should have decent help and support. He should have a guaranteed place to live. 

There's supposed to be a safety net for people in need. It doesn't catch everybody.

Countless times I've seen politicians outline what should happen at a hustings, for example. One which comes to mind was the SAMH hustings on mental health provision ahead of the 2011 Holyrood election. It soon became obvious that there was a monumental gap between what the politicians thought was happening and what people were experiencing on the ground. 

The young man I met the other night was very keen to make sure I got safely to the tube station. I just wish that there was something I could have done for him, to make sure he was safe.

When people are being left to sleep on the streets and are not given the medical care they clearly need, something is going wrong somewhere. 

Parental leave and mental health feature in Nick's third Letter from the Leader

I've dealt already with my concerns about the first paragraph, but the rest of Nick's third Letter from the Leader was exactly what we need to hear from him. He's long been passionate about making sure people with mental health problems are treated properly and promptly by the NHS and about making sure that parents themselves can choose which of them takes the leave from work when they have a baby.

This has been the week that he's been able to make announcements on both. 

I liked the bit at the bottom which suggested that people should forward the email on to five friends or family. Posting it here will do half that job for me, I guess.

Anyway, here it is in full:

Dear Caron,

In a week when we saw a set of disappointing elections - with hard working Liberal Democrats not getting the results they deserved and turnout slumping to a new low - it's worth remembering what we're achieving in Government.

This week I had the privilege – and I really do mean privilege – to announce a change in government policy that I’ve been working on pretty much since day one in the job. It’s a change that I think will make a difference to the lives of families up and down the country in a big way: shared parental leave.

We’re ending the system where the mother gets a year off and the dad just a paltry two weeks – a system which entrenches the gender divide at home and at work. Instead there will be 54 weeks off for every new set of parents, two weeks protected for the mum, and two for the dad, with the other 50 for them to divide up between them however they choose. They can even take a big chunk of time off together if that’s what suits them best.

At the same time, I announced we’re (finally) going to give parents of adopted children exactly the same rights to request flexible working arrangements of their employers.

These changes have been a long time coming. I remember agreeing the few words in the coalition agreement back in May 2010 about introducing “shared parental leave” and thinking – that’s an easy win. Far from it.

We’ve had submissions and papers and consultations every couple of months since then working out exactly how we create a shared system. We’ve spoken to business to ensure we design rules that won’t be disruptive at work. We’ve spoken to mums’ groups and dads’ groups and children’s groups to make sure the system will work for real family life. I’ve discussed it with my wife Miriam at length too – supporting working women is something she really cares about.

Of course in government, and especially in coalition, you don’t get everything you wish for. I also considered extending protected paternity leave to encourage dads to take more time off. But it isn’t deliverable right now, so that’s one I’ve put in the drawer for our 2015 manifesto.
But it’s so great to see something you’ve been working on for a long time finally see the light of day. It’s like sending your child to school for the first time – well, a bit like that, anyway.

That’s also how I feel about the announcements my colleague Norman Lamb made this week about improving care for people with mental health problems. I remember asking questions at PMQs about this back when we were in opposition, trying to get patients with mental health problems the same rights as people with physical health problems – like limits on how long they had to wait for treatment.

I got so many letters from people who had been waiting literally years to see someone and I was determined to try to do something about it. Now in government, though it’s largely under the radar, we’re putting into practice what we called for then.

Basically we’re making changes to the so-called “Mandate” by which the Health Secretary directs the NHS Commissioning Board, which in turn sets the framework for NHS managers and doctors. We went through all sorts of draft mandates and, after talking it over with David Nicholson, the NHS Chief Executive and Lord Layard, basically the biggest champion of talking therapies in the country, we came to an agreement. Like most things in the NHS it is all oddly technical but what this new “Mandate” means is that, for the first time, mental health patients will have a right to treatment within 18 weeks just like everyone else.

So there you go: More freedom for parents and more rights for people with mental health problems. One week, two changes with a big impact for millions of people. You don't get that in opposition.

Best wishes,







Nick

PS I believe shared parental leave and mental health are issues that really matter to huge numbers of people in this country. If you agree, please forward this email to five family and friends who you think might be interested in these issues so they can know about the changes we’re making.

Nick Clegg writes on Netmums blog about Post Natal Depression

We know our leader is passionate about ending the stigma associated with mental health problems and in making sure people have access to decent treatment. He understands the issues involved and it's an issue he talks about a lot.

Poor mental health was a subject nobody every discussed openly. It was pretty much taboo, especially in politics. Nick has made a point on making mental health one of his key priorities in Government, improving the lives of everyone who suffers, not just the half million extra people who have accessed the talking therapies he found extra money for.

On World Mental Health Day yesterday, Nick wrote about Post Natal Depression on the Netmums blog.He wrote about what the Government is doing to tackle this:

Earlier this year, we promised more NHS help for women with postnatal depression. We are recruiting more heath visitors across the country and they will all now get specialist   training to spot the early signs of postnatal depression.  They will make sure all women get vital professional support during and after birth.  Health visitors and midwives will team up to offer the best help to new parents. They won’t just concentrate on the practical ins and outs of looking after a baby – much of the focus will be on the emotional wellbeing of the entire family.

When that isn’t enough, they will be able to refer women to counselling. The Government is investing £400 million in psychological and talking therapies which is a very significant expansion of the services available and a key element of the national mental health strategy “No Health Without Mental Health”.

We have also launched an NHS Information Service for Parents, which anyone can access at www.nhs.uk/parents. It is a new email and text messaging service providing parents-to-be and new parents with trustworthy advice about the issues they care about most.

You can read his whole blog here.

18 months to wait for treatment for an acute condition is way too long

In some ways it's good Matt J McLaren didn't get called to speak at Liberal Democrat conference in the mental health debate. He might not have published his speech on his blog if he had been. And these are remarks that deserve a much wider audience.

He talks about his struggle with a mental health condition, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and how his doctor told him he'd have to wait 18 months to get the treatment he needed for it. Imagine that - over 500 days of living with the acute distress of this condition before the treatment even begins.

He challenges politicians to get this sorted now:

Simply put, the point I want to make with this speech is that there is no us and them when it comes to mental health.

Society, and its politicians, need to stop thinking of mental health provision as an exercise in providing a service for those poor souls afflicted with strange and peculiar conditions of the mind; and start realising that, with one in four adults afflicted with mental health difficulties at some time in their lives, it is a service that is there for all of us.

Any one of us is or can be affected by mental health difficulties at any one moment, and we need to make sure that if and when that happens they are not denied access to the right treatment in the way I and so many others have been.

And as a politician, an aspiring Member of the European Parliament, and a voice for this party – I consider it my first duty to dispel myth and misinformation around any subject, not least one so emotionally laden and liable to be a cause of even greater distress than the original condition itself.

So, Conference, we need to shout loud and clear, there is no shame in mental health difficulties.

 I've always been really lucky and managed to get the right sort of treatment quickly when my Depression has become unmanageable. The thought that people have had to wait a year and a half brings me out in a cold sweat.

The speech Matt never made is now one of the best blog posts I've read this year. Please read it yourself, share and learn.

As an aside, if you live in Scotland, it's Scottish Mental Health Week. Yesterday the Scottish Government launched a mobile app for your phone. It took me a while to work out what to do with it on my iPhone, so please don't feel I'm patronising you if I give you a few pointers. Once you've scanned the QR code, you need to open it in Safari before you try to save it to the Home Screen. That had me looking at it and scratching my head for a few minutes but we got there in the end.

Anyway, the aim of the app is to help defeat "Stigman" who displays all of the usual prejudices about mental health and the object is to defeat him with the very sensible rebuttals. I'm not 100% sold on Stigman as a concept to be honest, but if you can see past that, the actual information is good. You can sign the pledge on tackling stigma at the See Me website here.

Nick Clegg and Paul Burstow's 3 steps for employers on mental health

Cross posted from Liberal Democrat Voice

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's long running work on mental health issues took another step forward this week with the publication of a mental health implementation framework aimed at helping people suffering from mental health problems in the workplace. Employers will be asked to take 3 steps to identify and support those 1 in 6 workers affected. These are:

1)    Make this year the Time to Change: Sign your company up to the Time to Change campaign to end mental health discrimination. By signing up, you make a public commitment from the top of the organisation to the bottom, send a strong message to employees, and get expert support from Time to Change in dealing with mental health issues at work.

2)    Get some ‘First Aid’ training in mental health: Most companies have an employee trained in first aid. But mental ill health is the most prevalent cause of illness among people of working age. Appointing someone as a mental health expert or training a number of people in awareness would make a huge difference. Training is available from a variety of organisations.

3)    Call for help: the Health for Work Advice line in England can be accessed on 0800 0 77 88 44 and www.health4work.nhs.uk. It is designed to support employers and employees in small and medium sized businesses, by providing free-to-use early and easy access to professional occupational health and well-being advice to help employees remain in or return to work after a period of ill health.

Launching the strategy, Nick said:

Today I am calling on every employer large and small to do a mental health stock take. Too many people suffer in silence with mental health issues. Employers are well placed to recognise warning signs and signpost their staff to support.

70 million working days are lost as a result of mental health issues every year, costing business £1000 every year for each employee. Managing mental health at work well can save around 30 per cent of these costs - businesses cannot afford not to take mental health seriously.

These three simple steps give all employers the support to look after their staff’s mental health and keep Britain working.

Liberal Democrat health minister Paul Burstow added:

If we are to improve the nation’s wellbeing organisations from across society need to act as catalysts for change in their communities. This framework provides the practical guidance to help make this happen and I am delighted with the support it has from across the mental health sector who have worked so hard on producing this with us.

If you look at the long press release in full, you'll see that Nick and  Paul  have developed this strategy in conjunction with mental health charities and businesses. It's a real partnership, founded on expert knowledge and best practice. I hope that unions will get on board with this and encourage their employees to carry out these steps, particularly signing up to the Time to Change campaign, so that employees  know that they work for an organisation that wants to eradicate the stigma associated with mental health and will find the support that they need from their employer.

Nick's first major speech as leader way back in 2008 was about mental health issues and he has been inclusive and intelligent in the way he's gone about formulating a series of measures to improve the mental health of the country. He's provided treatment for half a million people, worked to help young people who are suffering and is now taking the effort to the workplace. I've written before about my own struggles with Depression. It's pretty hellish and I really do feel that Nick and Paul are doing exactly the right things. I can't help feeling intensely proud that it's our leader and health minister who have taken the initiative on this. The steps they have taken will directly improve the lives of millions of people. What media attention did this merit? Merely an article in the Independent and an interview on Channel 4 News.  It's time for Liberal Democrat members to put some serious effort into telling people in their area about Nick's and Paul's work on mental health. Everyone will know someone who benefits.

Nick Clegg writes about his efforts to improve mental health in the Sunday Express

Nick Clegg has long championed mental health issues and he made sure that an extra £400 million has been put into the most effective talking therapies. That's already made a difference to over half a million people. 

Yesterday he wrote about his initiative in the Sunday Express:

Too often these experiences are swept under the carpet – dealt with behind closed doors. Britain is an open and compassionate nation, but we Brits are a private people too – often preferring to put on a brave face rather than ask for help.

So three cheers to the Sunday Express for tackling Britain’s biggest taboo. Over the coming months the Crusade for Better Mental Health will lift the lid on this hidden suffering.

It’s an important wake up call: Reminding us that improving the nation’s mental health is everyone’s business. And not just because it’s the single biggest cause of disability in the UK. It also costs us over £100billion a year when you add in time off work and the benefits bill. Plus itcosts us all when prisoners with untreated conditions go on to reoffend. 

Last year I launched the Coalition Government’s mental health strategy with my colleague, Paul Burstow. Our aim is simple but ambitious: For too long mental health has been the poor cousin in the NHS. We want to put it on a par with physical health so everyone gets the support they need.

It is to be hoped that Express newspapers and all tabloids will adopt a more sympathetic attitude to people in the public eye who clearly are suffering from addiction or mental health issues. I won't be holding my breath.
Let's just hope that their reporting lives up to Nick's words. I'm glad to see him writing in tabloids - another example of good work from our press people.

You can read the article in full here.

The day Nick Clegg made me cry and other personal tales - over at Ellen's Mental Health Carnival

Ellen, over at In a Bun Dance, is doing something very important today. She is hosting a Mental Health Carnival, where she posts contributions from bloggers who have faced the particular challenges that mental health conditions throw at you.

She's done it because:

Mental illness, of all shades, just doesn't get talked about enough. There's still a stigma, so anything that raises understanding and awareness has to be good. 
Blogging can be hugely therapeutic in matters of mental dis-ease. It really helped me when I was in the grip of depression, therefore, I was delighted to highlight bloggers who talk about their experiences of it. 

And people don't talk about it nearly enough. In fact, many still worry that admitting a vulnerability will have a detrimental effect on their career. In fact, I may well have thought twice about talking about my own issues if I'd had any ambitions for a parliamentary career.

For me, this sort of openness about mental health issues is important in three ways. Firstly, as Ellen says, to break down the barriers, challenge the stigma. Mental illness strikes capable and talented people every day. In great numbers. For every five people you see today, one of them may well be suffering inside.

Secondly, it serves to comfort, reassure, inspire those who are struggling. Believe me, it can be a real battle just to keep yourself alive when you are in the pit of Depression with no obvious way out. If someone reads something that makes them realise that they aren't alone, that there is hope, and there are things that you can try to deal with the symptoms,

Thirdly, it should make us all aware of the need to make sure that there are sufficient resources to give everyone suffering from a mental health condition the support and treatment that they need. My contribution to this event is recycled. When Nick Clegg announced last year that £400 million  was to be spent on giving a million people access to talking therapies, it made me cry because I knew how that would literally save lives. That post was one where the political met the personal as I wrote about my lifelong association with the black dog. Last week, I was delighted to be able to tell Lib Dem Voice readers that half a million people had already benefited and that Nick's work to break down the barriers and stigma around mental health was continuing.

So head on over to Ellen's blog today, read the moving accounts people have written and take from them inspiration, a resolve to try to ensure better services and a better understanding of the reality of many people's lives.

Nick Clegg announces new funding and services for mental health - a personal account of why this will save lives

Nick Clegg made me cry today.

In a good way.

His announcement of an extra £400 million of ring fenced funding to help people with Depression and Anxiety, with specific emphasis for children and veterans is another example of Liberal Democrat policy being put into practice and is a big Liberal Democrat win within the coalition. That sum is of course just for England, but there should be Barnett Consequentials for Scotland, too. One in four adults will experience, at some point in their life, some form of mental illness, and one in ten children between the ages of five and sixteen. Growing up, and mastering lessons at school are hard enough, but through a mental illness into the mix and you can see how those kids are going to miss out if they aren't helped.

The human cost is far more important - of those lives remaining needlessly unfulfilled, but the financial cost to the country of mental ill health is estimated to be around £100 thousand million. That's an awful lot of money.

Nick Clegg has always been passionate about improving mental health treatment, about early intervention to stop problems in childhood extinguishing a person's potential. One of his first major speeches as leader, in February 2008, was about this issue. Unfortunately the link to his actual speech doesn't work any more but you can get the jist. In September 2008, the Liberal Democrats passed some major policy on mental health, much of which is being enacted now. It's significant that it's Nick Clegg who is fronting this for the Government and not Andrew Lansley, a sign of how important it is to him.

The two big things for me is that an extra million people will get access to high quality, evidence based talking therapies which aim to cure rather than control. For too long people with Depression have just been prescribed drugs rather than that sort of therapy.

The video below shows Nick Clegg talking about this on BBC Breakfast this morning, available on the BBC website here. You can see that this is something he really cares about.




Nick said today:

"The evidence is clear: mental health needs to be addressed with the same urgency as physical health. We need to end the stigma attached to mental illness, to set an example by talking about the issue openly and candidly and ensure everyone can access the support and information they need. 

"The strategy today shows how we will put people at the heart of everything we do, from a new focus on early intervention to increased funding for psychological therapy, so that everyone has a fair opportunity to get their lives back on track."

Anyone who's watching Coronation Street at the moment will be aware of how soldier Gary Windass has struggled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on his return from Afghanistan. He's recently been sacked from the Army after assaulting a police officer when being put in the Police van triggered his claustrophobia. The Corrie writing team and actors have authentically portrayed something many families are going through.

It's disgusted me that our Governments have sent young men home from war and just left them to get on with it. The culture of military service can make it difficult to admit to problems and access help - and that help has been insufficient. That changes now with an extra £7.2 million in targetted support for veterans - access to psychological therapies, access to a 24/7 helpline run by the fantastic Combat Stress, online counselling, specialised therapies for veterans, and, crucially, specialised e-learning packages for GPs to help them treat veterans in the way they need to be treated.

Nick said about these measures:

"I'm pleased to be able to announce more help for heroes. For some the toughest battle of their career is after they have left the service. 

"Many of our veterans have not been given the support they need or deserve to deal with their mental health problems. 

"It is our duty as a Government to support those who make such sacrifices for us when they need it most."

It's fair to say that Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell is not one of Nick Clegg's biggest fans, but he has today supported what Nick is doing.

 If Nick Clegg is seeking to become the voice of the mentally ill within government, then he deserves support. 

So that's all the facts, what you need to know about the Government's plans. But there's more. I want to tell you why I think this is so important.

Imagine you're trapped at the bottom of a seemingly endless mine shaft. There is no light, and the walls are like glass and you can't get out. You exhaust yourself trying, but it feels like there's no hope and your efforts are and always will be worthless.

That's how I've felt, on several occasions, through my life. There have been three main occasions. The first was much of my childhood. It wasn't always as acute as that, but looking back on it, depression and anxiety were a major part of my life from as far back as I can remember. By the time I was 12, it felt insurmountable.  I guess that weight didn't make me particularly likeable and I ended up being bullied quite mercilessly for the next three years which didn't do a lot for my mental health. I wrote about that experience a few months ago here. I know that my teachers were aware of some of the demons I was fighting - there were references to emotional problems on my school report when I was 8 years old, but nothing was done - I don't know what was available in those days, but I didn't get anything. I am fairly confident that if I'd had the sort of intervention that Nick Clegg talked about today, that my 12 year old self would have been stronger and less suicidal. There were some days when it was literally a struggle to stay alive. To this day I'm not entirely sure what stopped me ending my life, but I came very close. And nobody knew about it. The rising rates of suicide amongst young people show that too many aren't as lucky as I was.

After I was 15 or so, the acute Depression lifted. One thing I have learned over the years is that it always does eventually, but unless you have some decent therapy, it still hangs around, like an oppressive and unwelcome cloak. And then something else will happen and you hurtle back to the bottom of the pit again. That happened for me in the mid 90s. I am bad enough at the best of times, but this time the anxiety was crippling. There were times when I couldn't even go out. One year I had been perfectly happy to go off to New York, the next year I couldn't even go to my local shop.  Luckily I had a GP who preferred the counselling approach rather than drugs, something which chimed with my own instincts. I understand that others might think differently, but for me drugs would mean ceding all sort of control over my own mind which in many ways would have been worse for me.

I had a long series of counselling sessions which I found enormously helpful. The outcome of that was that for the first time in my life I had energy to use on developing as a person, to expanding my skill sets (although I still haven't learned how to design literature), to enjoy a contentment and stability that I'd never really known before, where curiosity replaced fear.

Fast forward a few years to round about 2003 when I had to deal with a demanding and stressful situation over a period of more than a year. I buckled again, went straight to the bottom of the pit without passing go.  I was lucky again at the new practice. Still no drugs and I didn't even have to go to hospital. I didn't even have to wait that long for treatment. This time I had the help of an absolutely fabulous Community Psychiatric Nurse who helped me recover and develop some techniques to avoid slipping again.

I just want to say something about talking therapies. Some people might think that's a soft option, you know, everyone sitting around in cosy armchairs talking about their feelings. I do know that it's viewed as something comic, indulgent, even, by some. Well, you just imagine finding, retrieving and opening every can of worms you've repressed and hidden away in your mind because they're too awful to deal with. Reliving those experiences, and rewriting the way your mind responds to certain situations, changing your reactions and your behaviour. That is Bloody Hard Work. I'd come out of sessions feeling like I'd gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson, totally drained and exhausted and bruised. The CPN assured me that this was a) completely normal and b) a good sign. You really have to invest everything you have in the process, but, boy, it's worth it in the end.

Now, I've been in stressful and demanding situations since then but have been able to use the techniques I learnt to dig myself in somewhere close to the top of the mine shaft, and ultimately drag myself out. I think it was a testament to the success of the therapy (as well as the support and love of my friends) which stopped me sinking into Depression when I was ill for so long after Glandular Fever.

I don't know if I will ever fall to the bottom again. I do know that I've had more peace and stability in my life in the 15 years since I first started receiving proper treatment than in the whole of the 28 years before.

My experience is comparatively mild compared to others, and I've been very lucky in that when I've been most in need, I've had medical people around who have been able to recognise that drugs alone, or at all, weren't the answer. More high quality therapy for a million more people as announced today is such a good thing. It probably isn't enough, but it's a really good start.

I know from today's announcement that more will be done to identify and treat depressed and anxious young kids so that they are able to overcome it so much earlier, so they can concentrate their energies on building successful lives for themselves.

There have been many years when I've been working, but I've not ever really had a proper career which I think is in large part down to the effect that untreated Depression from a very young age had on me. That's why I cried this morning when I heard Nick Clegg talk about how this Government is going to start to tackle that. It makes me incredibly happy to think that children will not have to go through what I went through and won't be held back.

Mental health has been very much the poor relation in health service provision. There is still a whole load of baggage and stigma round this issue. Nick Clegg has cut through all of that and done something positive. It's a liberal approach that will literally set people free from horrible illnesses. It will save lives. Nick doesn't bother about stigma. He just does what he instinctively feels is right. I have never been prouder of him for the way he's championed this and delivered in Government.

Update: Susan Gaszczak has a fantastic piece here