FAILURES in mental healthcare is keeping black communities from achieving their full potential, a new coalition has warned.

The group, which includes the Black Minds Matter charity, Mind and the Centre for Mental Health as well as smaller grassroots organisations, called on political parties to commit in their manifestos to positively change a system that is failing members of black communities when they are at their most vulnerable.

Nisa Chisipochinyi, on behalf of the coalition, said: “There have been plenty of words and promises, but failure to take decisive steps such as reforming the Mental Health Act [last year] signal that the mental health of black people still isn’t a priority.