Start early - live well: Addressing the mental health crisis
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, one in seven 10-19-year-olds experiences a mental disorder, accounting for 15% of the global burden of disease in this age group, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among those aged 15–29 years old.
What is often not made explicit in the conversation surrounding mental health in young people is that the consequences of failing to address adolescent mental health conditions extend to adulthood.
Therefore, it is crucial that action be taken and a platform be created to identify and put in place measures to ensure that mental health in the young is addressed now, before their lives are irreversibly affected and those issues extend into our future society. For this continuum of mental health, what is required is a whole system change to a fully functioning holistic 'healthspan'.
At Anthropy 2025: Rebooting Britain, the Adelphi Group sponsored panel, ‘Revolutionary Thinking for Mental Health’, focussing on young people, brought together expert panellists – Charlotte Baldwin, Mental Health UK; Dr Lauren Waterman, NHS; Sarah Hughes, Mind; Dr Sebastian Vaughan, Phytome Life Sciences; and Dr Sri Kalidindi CBE, Klip Global Ltd; with Lloyd Morgan, Adelphi Group, as moderator – to conceive of a way forward. These are their takeaways.
Young people at the table and driving decisions
It’s a new world, and the right people need to be at the table.
It is imperative to address the topic of mental health in the young with those living that experience: the young people themselves.
In creating a platform that provides support and therapeutic options from first symptom to long-term maintenance, the very foundations of the plan for a course of action must rest on better use of engagement: bringing the patient voice to the table – not regarding them as a case study at the centre of a circle of observers. Young people need to be part of decisions on their future, including recommendations on approaches and tools relevant to them, in the world they are growing up in and will be living in the future.
This requires active inclusion, collaboration, and communication.
It was during the Q&A section of the panel that this current lack became crystallised. Tanya, a Youth Mental Health campaigner observed, “Young people don’t have equitable seats at the table for this conversation. [We’re] often asked to share experiences and then thrown off the radar, [with] no say in policy.” As a result, NHS services are not made for someone like [her].”
Sarah Hughes agreed, saying “the seats at the table for young people aren’t there, they don’t exist. A very small group of people make the decisions,” and Dr Lauren Waterman added that clinicians also rarely have a seat at the table: “Decisions are so top down in the NHS […] Who is making the decisions? That needs to change. Things need to be more bottom up.”
Identifying the causes from the point of view of those involved
Hughes acknowledged that there’s a lot of ‘noise’ out there, but there is no denying the increase in prevalence of mental health diagnoses: in 2019, it was one in nine; it is now one in five. She advised that there is much that can be done around “social determinants of health [SDOH], communities, school, relationships, family – all these factors are at play.”
Charlotte Baldwin mentioned anxiety based school refusal as a starting block to be aware of: “What will happen to them? They can’t transfer into the workplace if they can’t cope with school. The problems will go into adult society if not addressed in young people.” Perhaps very much connected, the recent Burnout Report from Mental Health UK pointed to increasingly higher proportions of younger workers suffering mental health issues.
What is often overlooked – but touched upon by this panel and the wider Anthropy conference this year – is that today’s society involves issues that concern and cause anxiety in young people which differ from the past. They are subjected to a constant bombardment of negative world news and planetary health, amongst myriad other crises. And these are minds that are still developing.
Redressing, modernising the treatment landscape: Charities, community support, and technology as driving forces
Understanding the causes to help shape possible solutions
The role of charities emerged as key in seeking a holistic community of options – not just in the medical or clinical sense, but in supporting and navigating to appropriate, individual solutions.
On the community topic, there is the need also for localised understanding and addressing SDOH. It cannot just be GPs who are the first point of contact – local support programmes, as well as teacher and parent training, are critical. It is not just about medicine. Indeed, the scarcity of evidence and of new medications in mental health is in stark contrast to, for example, oncology.
Change commences hyper-locally, within the family unit, and then within the local community. As Baldwin suggested, “holistic solutions cannot just come from clinical answers – pills, therapy.” And Mental Health UK sees a key part of their purpose as primary response, early action; a community response to help avoid progression to clinical need.
Baldwin shared that, “Only 40% of teachers say they feel confident to support pupils with their mental health.” So it is that mental health is now being built into teacher training, and a recent pilot project undertaken with parents in Scotland has made “a huge difference; [it] changed the conversation at home.”
Changing the conversation at home. A simple notion, and yet it is parents who are “at the frontline of the mental health challenge,” as Hughes highlighted. She disagreed that, “Children don’t want to come out of their rooms; [they’re] only on their phones, only want online help” Rather, “they seek activism, storytelling, entrepreneurial adventures – opportunities need to be created, giving young people a better option to leave their rooms.”
Cross-sector, locally targeted, and collaborative mental health care
Baldwin provided an example from the Anna Freud Institute report, on the challenges and threats faced by young people in North Devon compared with those faced in East London – completely different between the two geographies, obviously. Change will require government input; housing and education needing to be addressed as “areas contributing the most towards ill health in the population”.
But, according to Dr Waterman, creative collaboration on these issues in addition to NHS reform is critical. SDOHs are different from place to place and local partnerships for mental health connectivity are crucial. Dr Waterman provided the example of Open Mental Health, a project in Somerset, which pulls together charities in local partnership with the NHS – all working together.
There have, of course, been recent moves in Greater Manchester to connect social care and healthcare that are relevant to this conversation, also. Live Well – Greater Manchester’s movement for community-led health and wellbeing – makes clear that being able to ‘live well’ means different things to different people, such as simply enjoying life, having purpose, a good job, being in a warm and safe house, having others in their lives to spend time with and care about, being represented, and having a voice and a say in decisions about their life.
And it is neighbourhoods, communities that people are part of, that play a considerable role in assisting in that living well.
Distinguishing between categories of mental health conditions
Necessarily, however, we must distinguish the different categories of mental health conditions and look at causative factors, including sleep issues, as well as the place of health technology as a potential support tool.
Dr Sri Kalidindi, consultant psychiatrist, coach, and mental health advisor at the WHO and for the UK government, explained that primary prevention needs to be considered alongside secondary and tertiary prevention. Additionally, people who have mental health disorders – depression, anxiety – must be clearly defined as a treatment area separate from those who have severe mental illness – psychotic and other conditions, including the physical health effects of these. There is a difference: there is no one-size-fits-all.
Giving the example of eating disorders, Dr Kalidindi explained that “evidence-based treatments – bio-psycho-social and spiritual” are needed early on in most cases. “If [you] wait until diagnosis, already a significant group of symptoms, behaviours, and thought processes [are in place]. That takes a lot longer to recover from.”
Baldwin agreed, highlighting treatment gaps as a major cause of deterioration, “only around 40% [able to] access the support needed.” Meanwhile, Dr Waterman noted that funding is not set up for prevention, citing “practical issues with service structure, funding, and prioritisation of services, with a focus on acute care […] treating only when most unwell.”
AI and healthtech as a potential solution
Dr Kalidindi, made clear that, “There will never be enough trained professionals to do all the work needed in mental health”, and this is where the cross-sector merits of technological solutions may be seen.
These include CBT apps, which do not replace important face-to-face consultations, but can be additional support, as well as a newly available primary care AI clinical decision tool, providing GPs with extensive advice at their fingertips, including NICE guidance, medications and/or interventions, and also locally available support programmes and services for patients.
In response to the increase of mental health issues in the workplace, as mentioned, Dr Kalidindi has also founded an employee wellbeing and development service, Klip Global, that is an AI healthtech enabled solution to support younger people in that environment.
New modalities: A future healing ‘healthspan’ system, bottom up
Dr Sebastian Vaughan proposed new paradigms of ‘living well’, beginning with examining what that truly means, unpacking and redesigning current approaches. As the panel agreed, this will involve integrative models of wellbeing – a collaborative approach between patients/young people, technology, society, healthcare, and the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr Vaughan’s company, Phytome Life Sciences, is seeking to unlock the potential of botanical medicines, standardising production of botanical medicines to enable clinical trials in this field and develop a new regime in healthcare.
It is increasingly evident that certain botanical medicines, including psychedelics when used in conjunction with psychotherapy, can reliably induce valuable “critical windows” of brain plasticity, enabling meaningful therapeutic change.
Drawing upon both traditional knowledge systems and patterns of unregulated patient use, there is a growing body of ethnobotanical insight and real-world evidence that can inform the safe, effective, and economically viable development of next-generation prescription therapeutics. However, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy remains a challenging model of care to deliver through the current healthcare systems.
An ability to adapt, then, to embrace change and the unforeseen. A framework for the unexpected; a collaborative community structure from home to workplace and beyond that provides support and care. No small ask, but a critical one, and not impossible – if we all work together now.
A system that supports an individual life-long, for the myriad stresses faced at different points in life, is crucial. It is not a matter of a single diagnosis, but providing support and tools for the duration of a person’s life, in an ever-changing, unpredictable world. AI and associated tools can help in this, as can new medical innovations.
As Dr Vaughan noted, it is critical that we “use all tools to reframe healthcare into healthspan” and ask ourselves, ‘How do we redesign our approach? How do we make strides in this area?’.
We have to take into account the input of all stakeholders, especially young people, charities with a patient view, physicians in developing new approaches, and the communities who locally support young people.
The words of Dr Kalidindi summed up the panel’s accord: “There is no health without mental health. It runs through everything, every government department, every part of society,” and therefore we must “advocate, collaborate, and do better than is being done now. We can, we must, we will.”
About the panellists
Charlotte Baldwin, Head of Young People's Programmes, Mental Health UK
Baldwin has more than 15 years’ experience of programme management in charities and the public sector. She currently leads Mental Health UK’s programmes for young people, which are delivered UK-wide in schools, colleges and community settings and have so far supported more than half a million young people to build their resilience, particularly in underserved communities where young people are more at risk of developing poor mental health. In this role, Baldwin combines her passion for working with communities at grassroots level together with a strong belief in the importance of early intervention and mental health equality. She strives to ensure Mental Health UK’s programmes create sustainable outcomes for those young people with greatest need across all four nations and remain attentive to what young people need and want, providing a service that can complement a range of community partners and reduce the need for clinical interventions.
Dr Lauren Waterman, Consultant Psychiatrist, NHS
Dr Lauren Waterman is an experienced NHS Consultant Psychiatrist who trained at the internationally renowned Maudsley Hospital in London and conducts research at King’s College London into mental health in immigration detention centres. She has broad expertise across the spectrum of mental health conditions, with particular interest in population health and inequality, depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD and neurodiversity, anxiety disorders, complex trauma, OCD, and insomnia. She has initiated and led national projects focused on population health, the mental health of asylum seekers and individuals in immigration detention, health inequalities, and the optimisation of treatment pathways for insomnia. Dr Waterman has received numerous national awards for her work, including a prestigious National Consultant Clinical Impact Award and a Women of the Future award. She lectures nationally on topics such as insomnia and reducing health inequalities, and has published over 25 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals.
Dr Sarah Hughes, Chief Executive, Mind
Hughes has worked in mental health and social justice for 35 years. She has held a number of chief executive roles in the voluntary sector, including for the prestigious think tank The Centre for Mental Health. Hughes holds a number of board roles, including One Small Thing and Global Leadership Exchange, and is a fellow of Sciana Health Leaders Network and Salzburg Global. She regularly appears in the media and is called on by governments and private companies across the world for her mental health knowledge and commentary. Hughes holds a professional doctorate on the topic of women and leadership and was given an honorary doctorate by Hull University, where she happily studied social work in the mid 90s. When she’s not at work, you can find her spending time with her amazing family and large number of pets.
Dr Sebastian Vaughan, CEO, Phytome Life Sciences
Dr Sebastian Vaughan is the CEO of Phytome Life Sciences, a leader in sustainable botanical medicines, green biotechnology, and plant-based pharmaceutical innovation. With a deep commitment to harnessing nature’s potential to address global health challenges, Dr Vaughan has pioneered advancements in biotechnology and sustainable pharmaceutical agriculture. He has forged strategic international partnerships, positioning Phytome as a bridge for UK-Saudi innovation in green biotech. Dr Vaughan’s career began at Imperial College, where he discovered and patented a biological cancer therapy, later expanding into technology consulting before founding Phytome.
Dr Sridevi Kalidindi CBE, MBBS, FRCPsych, PhD, founder of klip Global Ltd
Dr Sri Kalidindi is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, with decades' worth of direct clinical experience, supporting people with the most severe mental health conditions, getting their lives back on track and attaining their goals. She is the National Clinical Lead for Mental Health Rehabilitation at NHS England, through the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme and Co-Principal Investigator on a multi-site national RCT on reducing risk of diabetes mellitus in people with schizophrenia. She supervises postgraduate and medical students and is well-published in peer reviewed journals, and co-edited and co-authored the primary textbook on Rehabilitation Psychiatry in the UK, which was commended by the BMA Book Awards. She was honoured with a CBE in 2019 for services to Rehabilitation Psychiatry and is a holder of a national Clinical Excellence Award. Dr Kalidindi is the founder of klip Global, an employee development and wellbeing, healthtech, and in-person service.
Lloyd Morgan, Executive Director & General Manager, Adelphi Group (moderator)
Lloyd Morgan is the General Manager of the Adelphi Group. The Group has businesses based across Europe, USA, and Asia, employing over 1,000 staff. Specialising in the healthcare sector, Adelphi provides services across the strategic drug development and launch cycle. Previously, Morgan has led Adelphi market research businesses in Cheshire, Pennsylvania, and London. He is a member of the Adelphi Group Board.
About Adelphi Group
The Adelphi Group provides a wide range of strategic support services and consulting for global pharmaceutical clients. Adelphi is dedicated to the healthcare sector, providing services across strategic marketing, marketing and business intelligence, real-world observational research and disease-specific programmes, health and economic outcomes, market access, pricing and reimbursement, value insight, multi-channel health communications, scientific services, medical education, and strategic product development consultancy. Headquarters are located in Manchester, UK with a global network of offices across Europe and the US. The Adelphi Group employs over 1,000 people worldwide.
