Government unveils mental health plan
More adults trained in schools, a more transparent and graduated range of care, more trained caregivers... the government unveiled on Wednesday, June 11, a plan to try to better identify and treat mental health disorders, but also to make psychiatry more attractive.
Presented by the Minister for Health and Access to Healthcare, Yannick Neuder, following an interministerial strategic committee meeting, these thirty measures were announced the day after the murder of a middle school supervisor by a 14-year-old student, while mental health has been declared a major national cause in 2025.
This psychiatry plan is intended to be the " starting point for a lasting commitment," Neuder told Le Parisien . " We must rely primarily on the resources we have." The ministry did not specify whether funds would be released. The great national cause will be " not just a slogan," the minister recently stated, facing criticism of the executive's inaction, including from within the majority. Around a third of hospital practitioner positions are vacant, and the number of beds has been reduced, while the number of patients has doubled over the past twenty years.
The first part of the plan aims to promote early detection and intervention, particularly among young people aged 12 to 25. It incorporates certain measures announced in mid-May by Education Minister Elisabeth Borne, which some unions have deemed " narrow."
These include training two adult reference persons in each secondary school and each primary school district by 2026, deploying a national model for early detection and intervention, and training 100% of school health staff in early detection.
"Without financial resources, we don't really see how this can work, [when] we are seriously short of nurses, doctors, school psychologists and social workers," Catherine Nave-Bekhti, on behalf of the CFDT Education union, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). " We cannot place the burden of this challenge solely on existing staff," said Sophie Vénétitay of the SNES-FSU.
It is also planned to mobilize students from the health service working in schools to train young people in psychosocial skills and to train 300,000 mental health first aiders by 2027, which would double their number.
For a more accessible psychiatryThe second axis should promote " community psychiatry, readable and accessible" to better treat before, during and after an acute crisis. Among other measures, it recommends granting priority financial support to medical-psychological centers offering unscheduled appointment slots and intensive monitoring systems, as well as strengthening the regulation of psychiatric emergencies to direct patients towards appropriate care.
In psychiatric emergency departments, the government wants teams to have diverse backgrounds (peer support workers, social workers, etc.) and training in alternatives to isolation or restraint. In urban areas, it aims to have 12,000 psychologists registered with Mon Soutien Psy by 2027, compared to 6,000 today.
Poor access, a shortage of resources, territorial inequalities, and fundamental rights being flouted: the ethics committee expressed alarm at the end of January about the crisis in psychiatry and highlighted the urgent need for an ambitious plan.
The third area of its measures, to " rebuild" psychiatry, the government intends to " strengthen the training" of medical students, with a module in advanced psychiatry in each faculty, coupled with a practical internship. The number of psychiatry interns will be increased from 500 to 600 per year starting in 2027. As recommended in the report by MPs Nicole Dubré-Chirat and Sandrine Rousseau, a mission will examine working conditions in psychiatry, before an action plan in 2026.
Overall, " we can't make up for ten years of procrastination and waiting in two easy steps. We're taking these half-measures, but they're not going to solve anything," Jean-Pierre Salvarelli of the hospital psychiatrists' union told AFP.
"There are broad outlines, but major financial elements, a timetable and a number of measures are missing: there is nothing on prevention, early detection, research and the issue of young people, which comes up regularly," said psychiatrist Rachel Bocher, president of the National Inter-Union of Hospital Practitioners (INPH).
Mental health disorders affect approximately one in three people, and some 2 million French people are treated in psychiatric care each year. The Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated the deterioration in mental health, particularly among young people.
The World with AFP
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