The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched new guidance aimed at reforming and strengthening mental health systems around the world. Despite growing awareness, mental health services remain deeply underfunded and outdated in many countries. In some areas, up to 90% of people with severe mental health conditions receive no care at all. Where services do exist, they often rely on institutional models that don’t meet modern standards or uphold human rights.

This new guidance offers countries a clear, adaptable framework to create inclusive, rights-based mental health systems. It emphasizes the importance of accessible, person-centred care that goes beyond medication to include social, psychological, and economic support.

The guidance prioritizes five key areas for urgent reform:

1. Leadership and governance

2. Service organization

3. Workforce development

4. Person-centred interventions

5. Addressing social and structural determinants of mental health

It also highlights the importance of addressing factors like housing, education, and employment, which play a crucial role in mental well-being. Importantly, the WHO encourages countries to involve people with lived experience in the planning and design of policies to ensure services meet real-world needs.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, stressed the urgency of the initiative, noting that while demand for mental health care is rising, access to quality services remains a major challenge. Designed to be flexible, the guidance supports all countries—regardless of income level—to tailor their mental health strategies to local needs and available resources.

Developed with input from global experts and communities, the WHO's new guidance is a practical, actionable step toward building more compassionate, effective mental health systems worldwide.

Encouragingly, this new guidance supports the rights-based approach being promoted by New Script for Mental Health and encapsulated in the Give 5 Rights Based Wellbeing Framework. Our framework centres the importance of addressing structural causes of trauma and distress, perpetuated by discriminatory and harmful approaches within systems such as housing, immigration and mental health services.

New Script welcomes the publication of this guidance by the WHO and urges the Department of Health, the Public Health Agency, Health Trusts, mental health oversight and regulatory bodies to use this guidance to implement much needed reformation and strengthening of our mental health systems.