Tony Blair tells Brits to stop self-diagnosing with depression as 'UK can't afford spiralling benefits bill'
13 January 2025, 07:32 | Updated: 13 January 2025, 08:36
Tony Blair has warned British people against self-diagnosing with mental health conditions, pointing to the country's spiralling sickness benefits bill.
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The former Labour Prime Minister said that many issues simply represented "the challenges of life", rather than medical conditions such as anxiety or depression.
The number of people with common mental health conditions has risen in recent years, alongside greater emphasis in society on 'awareness' of such conditions.
Many people view this as positive, as people are more likely to take action and seek help to tackle mental disorders and stop them from becoming worse.
But some, like Blair, have warned that this has also resulted in some people 'medicalising' their mental condition, which they may otherwise have considered a normal part of everyday life.
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They point to the UK's fast-increasing sickness benefits bill, much of which is driven by people with mental health conditions.
According to the previous government in a statement last year, the benefits bill is set to rise to £28 billion in just three years.
The number of new people given sickness benefits (PIP) for mental health conditions each month has more than doubled since the pandemic.
Blair, who was PM from 1997-2007, told the Jimmy's Jobs of the Future podcast: "I think we have become very, very focused on mental health and with people self-diagnosing.
"We're spending vastly more on mental health now than we did a few years ago.
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"And it's hard to see what the objective reasons for that are."
The former PM added: "Life has its ups and downs and everybody experiences those. And you've got to be careful of encouraging people to think they've got some sort of condition other than simply confronting the challenges of life.
"We need a proper conversation about this because you really cannot afford to be spending the amount of money we're spending on mental health."
