The Society attended the Labour Party Conference in September 2024, where we had a stand informing MPs, organisations, and delegates about the importance and value of counselling & psychotherapy.
We were delighted to be visited by Wes Streeting MP, the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, who took the time to talk to CEO, Jyles, and played our interactive game designed to get people thinking about the current state of mental health support provision and how the counselling & psychotherapy profession can ameliorate some of the issues.
In his speech at the conference, he said that "where there's capacity in the private sector, patients should be able to choose to go there too, free at the point of use, paid for by the NHS". This is a huge step forward in support of our campaign for Direct Access to Counselling, and we will be communicating with the Department of Health & Social Care to determine how we can progress this further.
Karin Smyth MP, Minister of State at the Department of Health & Social Care also visited our stand, and was interested and thoughtful about the role of counselling & psychotherapy.
Other visitors included Abena Oppong-Asare MP and Josh Dean MP. Abena held the role of Shadow Minister for Mental Health in the previous parliamentary session. We were thrilled to see her, as we had built a great relationship with her over the year that she was in post, and wish her the very best in her new role as Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office. Josh is a new MP, and was very interested in and supportive of the work the Society is doing.
The team attended a number of Fringe events on topics around mental health, and met with a number of MPs that are passionate about the topic and making a difference. Our Head of Policy had the opportunity to meet her local constituency MP, Dr Beccy Cooper, who we were heartened to see speaking at an event around Children & Young People's mental health. We're hopeful that we will have her support as a profession in Parliament in future.
Another side of conferences such as this is meeting people in professions different to our own, and having conversations that teach us about issues that might impact on our members either now or in the future, as well as discussing ways in which our members can better support their communities. We're always looking for opportunities for work for our members, and had a number of conversations that we hope will expand our Therapy Hub offering to variety of different organisations, including businesses, charities, and unions.
We will be staying in touch with everyone we had the pleasure to meet at the event, and keeping our profession at the forefront of their minds as we venture further into this new governmental period.
