In March the health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, told Laura Kuenssberg’s programme that there was an “overdiagnosis” of mental health conditions.

He made the comment in the context of proposed reforms to the welfare system, aimed at cutting the benefits bill.

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, more than half of the rise in working-age disability claims since the Covid pandemic is related to mental health or behavioural conditions.

Labour’s reforms focus on making the system “sustainable”. Getting sick and disabled people off benefits such as Personal Independence Payments and into work.

Letter: Bizarre for Jamie Bryson to compare bilingual signage in Belfast to an Orange Order march

Leo Varadkar: ‘Building a new and united Ireland is the next step in our island’s journey’

Streeting acknowledged that there was a spectrum of mental illness, but stated that part of the problem was overdiagnosis, with too many people simply being “written off”.

Since he made those comments there has been a flurry of articles and opinion pieces giving their tuppence worth on what exactly overdiagnosis means.

For many it is a validation of long-held suspicions that mental illness is the latest fad, driven by........

© The Irish News