When I had my first child, I became severely sleep deprived and asked numerous practitioners for support. My GP eventually prescribed antidepressants, but nobody addressed the thing that was sitting at the heart of what I was experiencing: I wasn’t sleeping.
There was no sleep education, no practical support and nowhere I could go to talk about what was happening.
Based on my lived experience I founded The Sleep Charity in 2012. My vision is that one day every high street will have somewhere people can walk into and talk about sleep – a place to learn, ask for advice and get support before sleep difficulties become embedded and begin affecting other areas of their lives.
We also need to challenge a culture that still sometimes treats sleep as a luxury. It is fundamental to our physical and mental health, our ability to learn, work, parent and cope with everyday life.
Poor sleep has a cost. RAND Europe’s landmark analysis of insufficient sleep estimated that poor sleep could cost the UK economy the equivalent of up to 1.86% of GDP, through factors including reduced productivity, absence from work and increased mortality. More than 200,000 working days a year were estimated to be lost.
The figures are enormous, but behind them are individuals and families struggling with something that we can often address much earlier. That is why I believe sleep needs to be considered as part of public health, prevention and early intervention, rather than waiting until people reach crisis point.
Our partnership with Doncaster Council is beginning to show what a different approach could look like. Rather than creating a system in which everyone needs to see a sleep specialist, we are building sleep knowledge into the community.
A fundamental part of our approach is training practitioners who work with children and families. These are trusted professionals who are already having conversations about health, wellbeing, parenting and development. Giving them knowledge and confidence around sleep means they can recognise difficulties earlier, start conversations about sleep and provide evidence-based advice.
And we don’t simply train practitioners and leave them to it. The Sleep Charity website provides free downloadable resources that professionals can use and share with those they support. Alongside this, our local helpline means families can access more specialist help if required.
The result is a tiered approach: Educate communities → equip frontline practitioners → provide accessible resources → offer specialist support when it is needed.
Imagine if we did this everywhere. We cannot build a sleep clinic staffed by specialists on every high street tomorrow, but we can start building sleep support into the places people already go: family hubs, community organisations, schools, early years services, workplaces and primary care.
We can train the people already working in those communities. We can give them high-quality resources. We can provide specialist services for people who have more complex sleep needs.
Most importantly, we can start talking about sleep before someone reaches the point I did all those years ago – sitting in a GP surgery struggling because I hadn’t slept and being offered medication without anyone asking what support I needed to sleep better.
Our experience in Doncaster is showing us that councils can play a powerful role in supporting improved sleep and better lives – putting sleep into prevention, building capacity in communities and making good sleep support accessible before problems escalate.
What we are developing in Doncaster provides a model that could be adapted and embedded in communities across the country, bringing sleep support closer to the people who need it and helping councils intervene earlier.
Vicki Beevers is CEO and Director of Children’s Sleep at the Sleep Charity. This blog was written for the Mentally Healthier Councils Network.
