World Mental Health Day 2026: Real Voices, Real Change
The theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day – Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change – highlights the importance of ensuring that the voices of people with lived experience shape the policies, services and decisions that affect their lives.
Lived experience provides insights that cannot be gained through data, research or professional expertise alone.
We know that listening and responding to people’s voices, through meaningful engagement and genuine co-production, leads to systems and services that are more person-centred and rights-based, and better able to meet people’s needs.
In the context of mental health services, this would help to ensure that support better reflects the realities of living with a mental health condition, and to identify barriers to accessing help and support that might not otherwise have been considered.
To help us reach this point, it’s crucial that everyone has an opportunity to make their voices heard, including older people, whose experiences of mental health issues and accessing support are too often not actively sought and reflected in policy and service delivery.
This creates significant gaps in understanding older people’s lived experiences, as does the fact that mental health issues experienced by older people can go unnoticed, or be dismissed as being part of growing older.
For example, age-based assumptions may direct conversations about older people’s mental health towards issues such as dementia, rather than towards common or acute mental health conditions. Similarly, depression, anxiety and trauma can present differently in later life and may be attributed to life events commonly associated with growing older, such as bereavement or declining physical health, rather than recognised as mental health issues requiring support
These gaps in understanding and assumptions can shape everything from the way that symptoms are responded to (and the types of support that are subsequently offered), to the ways that services themselves are designed and delivered.
Ensuring older people’s experiences are understood and reflected in policy, practice and service delivery is therefore critical.
That is why I will soon begin a formal Review into older people’s access to mental health support in Wales, as highlighted in my 2026-27 work programme.
The Review will explore older people’s lived experiences, examining the mental health support currently available, how people’s needs are identified and responded to, and how support is planned, commissioned and delivered. It will also examine the policies, services and wider factors that shape mental wellbeing, prevention, access to support and outcomes.
I am undertaking the Review using my legal powers, which means that the bodies subject to its findings and recommendations are required to provide a response setting out the action they will take to address any issues I identify or concerns I raise.
This will help to drive meaningful change in mental health support for older people, informed by their experiences and what matters most to them, while also ensuring accountability for delivering the improvements required.
The success of initiatives like World Mental Health Day, and decades of hard work by campaigners, means that awareness about mental health and the importance of accessible mental health support has grown significantly across society.
But many people still experience stigma due to their mental health and face barriers when seeking support, including many older people, who face particular challenges, as highlighted above.
So it’s crucial that mental health services and support better reflect people’s needs to deliver better outcomes and enable earlier, easier access to support – a key ambition in the Mental Health Strategy for Wales.
And as we translate this ambition into action, it’s crucial that older people’s experiences are recognised and responded to, something I will continue to enable through my work as Commissioner.
