NHS mental health services a ‘generation’ behind treatment of other illness and conditions
A man who experienced bone crushing anxiety and deep dark depression has said that when it comes to the NHS, mental health care is a ‘generation’ behind that of other treatments and conditions.
Ashley Riley, 53, has said on World Mental Health Day 2025 that too many men, their relationships, their families, their careers and their communities are being destroyed through lack of suitable care.
Two years ago, as an outgoing, comfortable, loud, business owning confident man, Ashley started suffering from a low mood and had a brief panic attack. Within a month it turned into life stopping anxiety and deep, dark depression.
He said: “After being given three different anti-depressants by my GP, each one making me more and more ill, I was basically left to it.
“While in the middle of a panic attack in his surgery I had one GP shouting at me to calm down while another GP asked me outright what medication I wanted to try next.”
The business owning father of two ended up experiencing psychosis before borrowing money to go into private psychiatric care for 10 days.
After leaving care he had a stroke while mowing the front lawn and was found by his 11-year-old daughter.
Ashley said: ““As soon as my stroke was diagnosed, I received up to three home visits every week for two months.
“I was seen by some brilliant specialists, nurses, physios, and occupational therapists. You could not ask for more.
“About 100,000 people in the U.K. suffer a stroke every year.” he continued. “1 in 8 men in the U.K. experience life changing depression or anxiety every year. Yet the treatment from the NHS could not be more different than for a stroke. My wife and I were simply left to it.”
“At the worst of times, when we simply didn’t know what to do, we’d telephone 999 and be told to go to A&E.
“You’d wait for hours on end to be seen and then be given a cup of tea and a handout on breathing exercises.”
Ashley, who has previously appeared on local and national media to share his journey of a male middle-aged mental health crisis, says it’s not the fault of frontline healthcare.
He said: “Despite the much-needed increase in mental health awareness there remains a deep chasm of care on Mental Health Day 2025.
“I’m not a medic and I’m not a therapist but I hear every day from men going through real life changing mental health challenges.
“Unless they are at the point of wanting to harm themselves or considering ending their life, they are simply being left to it. We know that 75 per cent of UK suicides are men. That number will never change while the current provision of service remains.”