Rethink Mental Illness provides over 90 services in England, a network of local support groups, and run campaigns that bring about real change to the lives of people severely affected by mental illness.
In November 2024 Rethink held their bi-annual Members Day, focused on culture, diversity, and its intersection with mental health, allowing members to connect and hear from inspiring speakers. In recognition of Rethink’s own strides in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion they were nominated as a finalist in the British Diversity Awards 2025.
It was a particular busy year of campaigning and policy influencing, with a new UK Government coming into Parliament in July. In June 2024 Rethink, in collaboration with their Carers Advisory Board, launched their Mental Health Unpaid Carers Charter, highlighting the vital role of unpaid carers and encouraging carers to engage with Members of Parliament to ensure that carers are firmly on their agenda. September saw the launch of a large-scale public campaign, ‘Let’s Rethink’, aiming to reduce stigma and discrimination of people living with a mental illness, with over 11 million views of their campaign film on television and over 7,000 downloads of their guide to better understanding the stigma and discrimination faced by people severely affected by mental illness.
After years of campaigning, consulting and amending, Rethink celebrated a significant milestone in November 2024 with the introduction of the Mental Health Bill to Parliament. This marks an important step toward transforming mental health policy in the UK.
Rethink continued to campaign for mental health to be a political priority, this year successfully campaigning to protect the Mental Health Investment Standard, which is designed to protect and grow mental health funding across England. They also launched a campaign calling on MPs to prioritise tackling mental health waiting lists, highlighting how people are eight times more likely to wait over 18 months for mental health care than for physical health care.