My name's Ben Holmes. Six years ago, I was struggling with my mental health, and I didn't know if I'd make it through the year. I did - but only because the right support turned up at the right moment. Most people don't get that moment. They get a waiting list.

 

We, the undersigned, call on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to end the mental health waiting list crisis - with ring-fenced funding, a legal maximum wait time for care, and mental health treated as the emergency it already is.

 

Why This Can't Wait

 

Right now, while you read this, 2.36 million people in England are sitting on an open referral for NHS mental health care. 476,000 more joined that list last month alone (NHS England, May 2026). Behind every one of those numbers is someone like me six years ago - someone who reached out for help and was told to wait.

 

• Rising mental health issues: Depression, anxiety and other conditions are at record highs, driven by economic pressure, isolation, and crisis after crisis. This isn't a dip. It's the new normal, and it's getting worse.
• Care that isn't there: Millions can't get affordable, timely support. Long waits turn manageable problems into emergencies - sometimes fatal ones.
• A workplace crisis nobody's fixing: Stress, burnout, and job insecurity are wearing people down, and most workplaces still have no real support structure in place.
• Stigma that still kills: People stay silent and untreated because they're scared of how they'll be seen. Silence doesn't reduce suffering - it just hides it until it's a crisis.

Why Now, Specifically

 

Andy Burnham has just become Prime Minister - the first person to hold the office having previously run the NHS as Health Secretary. For over a decade he's warned that mental health gets sidelined "in tough times." Commentators are already asking whether he could be Britain's first mental-health-focused PM. He has the knowledge. He has the position. Now he needs the pressure - from us - to act instead of just understand.

 

What We're Demanding

 

1. Ring-fenced funding for mental health services - not a pot that quietly shrinks whenever budgets tighten elsewhere.
2. A legal maximum waiting time for mental health treatment, matching the standard already set for physical health.
3. Mandatory, funded mental health support in every school and workplace - not guidance documents, actual delivered support.
4. True parity of esteem in law, so mental health is funded and insured on equal terms with physical health, permanently.
5. A national campaign to end the stigma that keeps people silent until they're in crisis.

I'm not asking you to imagine what it's like to wait for help while you're falling apart. I lived it, and I got out the other side. Not everyone does. Sign this petition, then share it with five people who'll care enough to sign too. We're 1,259 signatures from our next goal - let's not stop there.

 

Sources: NHS England, Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics (May 2026); The Big Issue, "What has new prime minister Andy Burnham said about mental health?"