The following details have been supplied by the TUC:

A Conservative election pledge on mental health mean nothing without a commitment to proper funding, critics have said. Theresa May said this week she would introduce a new Mental Health Treatment Bill and employ more staff in mental health services by 2020. 

The prime minister said: “We are going to roll out mental health support to every school in the country, ensure that mental health is taken far more seriously in the workplace, and raise standards of care.” Other measures proposed include requiring large companies to train mental health first responders alongside traditional first aiders. 

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “We want to stop the fact that you can lose your job for that and suffer discrimination in a way that you would not be able to suffer now if you were disabled, [or had] other conditions.” 

However, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Janet Davies said the NHS needs “hard cash”, not rhetoric. She said: “Under this government, there are 4,800 fewer mental health nurses and that goes some way to explaining why patients are being failed. For as long as parity of esteem between physical and mental health services remains rhetoric, this will not change. The NHS needs to see hard cash to deliver any plans.” 

Labour’s shadow mental health minister Barbara Keeley said that the Conservatives had “not delivered on their promise to give mental health the same priority as physical health. They appear to be offering no extra funding and have consistently raided mental health budgets over the last seven years.” She added: “Warm words from the Tories will not help to tackle the injustice of unequal treatment in mental health.”