Essex poet and BGT star Sonny Green backs major campaign for better mental health care
Essex poet and Britain’s Got Talent star Sonny Green is lending his voice to a major new campaign calling for faster, fairer and more modern mental health care across the UK.
Last updated 23rd Apr 2026
Sonny, 31, from Southend-on-Sea – who wowed the judges on BGT with his powerful spoken word – is supporting Head On, a new national campaign urging the government to work with the mental health sector on a practical blueprint for change.
He has spoken openly about struggling with addiction when he was younger, and says he got clean before his son was born in 2018. Now he’s using his platform to back one clear message: mental health must be central to the country’s health, social and economic renewal.
Public want more action on mental health
New polling by the Wellcome Trust and More in Common shows strong public consensus on mental health, with three in four Britons (75%) believing the government should be doing more to improve mental health services.
Despite that, campaigners say political action is lagging behind public opinion, with Westminster failing to match the scale of concern and unmet need.
Mental health is also one of the rare issues that cuts across political divides. Britons are nearly three times more likely to see people talking about mental health as having genuine health and welfare concerns than as “making excuses” (63% vs 22%), giving politicians a clear mandate to act.
Speaking with Sonny he told us this:
“There’s still a lot of stigma around mental wealth and, you know, that’s why suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in our country.” he said.
“I hit a bit of a rock bottom when my dad passed away… there was a real time in my life where my dad passed and my son was being born, and that was a real turning point in my life to actually make a change and address my mental health situation head on.”
“I don’t always find speaking easily, especially about emotions. So when I write, that is my way of kind of therapy — just pouring it out onto a page.”
Head On: a united call for change
The Head On campaign brings together more than 20 organisations, including:
- Rethink Mental Illness
- Mental Health UK
- Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)
- YoungMinds
- Wellcome
- Mental Health Foundation
Public figures such as Alastair Campbell, rapper Shocka, poet and BGT star Sonny Green, and mental health activist Ben West have joined charities and people with lived experience outside Parliament to send a united message: mental health must be at the heart of the UK’s recovery.
Campaigners are calling on the Government to:
- Treat mental health with the same seriousness and urgency as physical health
- Work with the sector on a practical plan for faster, fairer and more modern care
Long waits, real consequences
One of the starkest signs of the crisis is waiting times. In England, far more people are waiting 18 months or longer for mental health treatment than for physical health care.
Behind those statistics are individuals and families left waiting too long for help – often until problems escalate into crisis.
Campaigners say that, 80 years after Nye Bevan set out the founding vision for the NHS, the country now needs that same level of ambition for mental health.
“People want solutions, not blame”
The Head On partners say the time for warm words has passed and that politicians now need to turn public concern into concrete change.
The campaign is backed by Wellcome, whose Director of Mental Health, Professor Miranda Wolpert, says we are in the midst of a “revolution in mental health science”, with new ways of tackling problems earlier and more effectively. But for those solutions to reach people, the system needs political will and investment to match the scale of the challenge.
Brian Dow, CEO of Mental Health UK and a Head On partner, says families across the country are already living with the reality of mental illness every day and now want to hear “solutions, not blame”.
A rare issue that brings Britain together
In an increasingly polarised political climate, mental health stands out as something that unites people. Support for better mental health care has remained strong in recent years across age groups and political backgrounds.
The Head On campaign argues that this consensus gives political leaders both a mandate and a responsibility to act – and to build a mental health system the country can be proud of.