OXFORDSHIRE’S MENTAL health services have vastly improved over the past four years, it has been claimed.

But there are tough times ahead as the ongoing recession affects people’s personal lives, according to a new report.

Dr Jonathan McWilliam, pictured, released his fifth annual Public Health Report on Thursday.

The report profiles the health of the county, how it has improved, and what the goals are for the future.

Dr McWilliam said: “It is appropriate to conclude that services combating mental illness and promoting mental wellbeing have improved over the past four years in Oxfordshire.

“Four years ago, mental health was definitely a ‘Cinderella issue’ – this is no longer the case.”

According to the report, anxiety and depression is the most common mental disorder, affecting some 35,000 people in Oxfordshire.

But levels of major mental illnesses like schizophrenia recorded by GPs are stable and are not rising.

And Oxfordshire’s suicide figures and A&E attendances for deliberate self-harm such as overdoses have fallen steadily over the last four years.

Dr McWilliam said: “The challenge will be to sustain this improvement during a tough fiscal climate, especially as the impact of the recession works its way through peoples’ personal circumstances.”

In March, the Oxford Mail revealed plans by the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, formerly the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust, to make savings of £40m over the next five years.

It outlined plans to cut services by a fifth.

And in the same month, a new daytime service for mental health patients was launched, following an overhaul of Oxfordshire’s mental health services.

The Keeping People Well programme features two new daytime services, the Well-being service and the Recovery service, replacing a number of other projects.

The Gemini, in Rectory Road, East Oxford, a project for psychiatric patients, was one of the schemes which fell victim to the cuts.

Dr McWilliam said the county would face difficult times as it grapples with tightening resources as a result of public sector cuts, and as it moves towards GP commissioning, the change which will see doctors take over health budgets.

He added: “The sea may be calmer, but it is by no means all plain sailing from here on.”

In tomorrow’s Oxford Mail we look at reversing the tide of obesity