NHS Mental Health Tzar welcomes the Laughing Buddha Bubble Incubator
22 May 2006 A pioneering scheme to help those with mental health problems set up in business themselves was praised this week by the country’s mental health tsar, Professor Louis Appleby.
Prof Appleby told a national conference at Manchester Business School that projects like the Laughing Bubble Business Incubator provided a vital route back into the workplace and mainstream life for those with mental health difficulties.
Unfortunately funding for the Manchester and West Yorkshire based projects is in jeopardy, as government cash through the Small Business Service's Phoenix Fund comes to an end.
Professor Appleby said that government was increasingly looking at schemes which had not only therapeutic value, but also provided economic and social benefits.
He said measures like the Laughing Buddha Business Incubator could play an important role in helping people off Incapacity Benefit - one of the government's key priorities.
"Currently, mental health issues are the biggest single cause of people being on Incapacity Benefit," Professor Appleby said.
"Of the 2.5 million people claiming Incapacity Benefit," he said, "more than 900,000 have mental health problems."
"The government rightly has an interest in getting people back to work," Prof Appleby added. He said that returning work had both economic and therapeutic benefits.
"There has never been a stronger interest in, and more common ground around, what mental health services are for, and how they can help people return to mainstream society."
Details of the topics discussed at the conference will be made available on this site shortly.