Lessons from Labour Party Conference 2025: Where is mental health?  

Our Head of Communications and Public Affairs Katie Leay shares her reflections from this year’s Labour Party Conference.   

Labour’s 2025 Conference was buzzing with ambition to transform our health system – but I came away thinking – is mental health being forgotten again?

I attended alongside our Chief Executive, Philippa Mariani, and Levi Chambers-Cook – a trustee and mental health social worker who trained through our mental health social work programme. We were there to speak up for mental health and to keep the mental health workforce, including mental health social workers, high on the agenda.

There’s plenty to be optimistic about – but a lot still to do to make sure mental health gets the focus it needs.

Health is high on the agenda…

There was energy around health and care reform. The passion and determination to make big changes was clear.

The government’s planned three shifts – from hospital to community, treatment to prevention, and analogue to digital – could be transformational for patients and professionals if they are achieved.

But it’s a big if. The ambition is bold, yet the 10 Year Health Plan still lacks a clear roadmap of how these shifts will actually be achieved.

… But mental health is not getting the focus it desperately needs

I was concerned by how little focus mental health got throughout the conference. It wasn’t a significant feature in the main speeches or the fringe events – physical health dominated.

In fact, the only time mental health really seemed to be getting airtime was in the context of getting people back to work.

Meaningful work can be hugely beneficial to wellbeing, but mental health plans and conversations must include everyone – including those unable to work.

Mental health needs to be a priority in it’s own right. Over 1.8 million people are currently on waiting lists for mental health care. And because mental and physical health are deeply connected, neglecting one means failing on both.

Neighbourhood health offers a big opportunity for transforming mental health care…

Plans for neighbourhood health offer huge potential to bring more holistic, person-centred care closer to home.

It’s a crucial chance to drive a more social approach to mental health.

One that considers people’s life circumstances – such as their housing, their finances, their relationships, their connection to their community – as a key part of their mental health and wellbeing.

Mental health social workers already work in this way. Their role is often overlooked or misunderstood, even by policymakers, but their support can be truly transformational. That’s why we’ll keep banging the drum for them.

… But we’ve got a long way to go on workforce

The people who work in our health service ARE the health service. It was heartening to hear strong support for staff and discussion on how changes to health care can lead to improvements for staff too.

But – good intentions and warm words only go so far. We know that people enter into healthcare careers with a determination to make a difference to people.

We see this at Think Ahead with our mental health social work trainees, who join with huge motivation and optimism – but the system needs to sustain that energy. All too often, people all across the healthcare sector are facing intense pressure, inadequate resources and burnout.

Conversations at Conference often centred on doctors and nurses. They are, of course, essential – but the sector depends on a far broader workforce. We need to be thinking clearly about all roles and how they contribute to the three shift – this was a point we made clearly when speaking to MPs.

It’s time to do things differently on workforce

It was encouraging to hear so much discussion about doing things differently in training and development. From Keir Starmer’s commitment to gold-standard apprenticeships, to MPs recognising the value of the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, there’s clear appetite to do things differently.

We’ll be watching closely as these plans take shape – especially the upcoming NHS Workforce Plan – to see how mental health and social work are represented.

We will keep standing up for mental health, championing a social approach, and speaking up for a mental health workforce to have the resources and support it needs.