11/05/2026
This Mental Health Awareness Week, let this statistic sink in.
An estimated 200,000 people in the UK live with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. A condition that does not respond to standard medication. A condition that NICE has a recommended treatment for.
Most of those 200,000 will never receive it.
Not because the treatment does not work. Because clinicians lack the confidence to prescribe it safely.
The average wait before a patient is offered clozapine is four years from the point they first qualify.
Four years of failed medications, hospital admissions, and deteriorating quality of life.
Awareness weeks matter. So does the clinical infrastructure that sits behind them.