Failing to properly diagnose and treat people with bipolar disorder is wasting billions of pounds a year in the UK, according to new data shared exclusively with the BBC. Experts say many of the estimated million people living with this condition are “ghosts in the system”, whose lives are being torn apart by poorly managed extreme suicidal lows or manic, erratic highs.

Emma was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her early 30s, after experiencing a mental health crisis.

When she was 32 weeks pregnant, her grandmother died unexpectedly, sending her into a “deep low”. “I felt awful, but the perinatal team wouldn’t take me on,” she says. “They said my symptoms weren’t that serious.”

When Emma gave birth, the extreme lows of her pregnancy were replaced by an unexpected high. She felt amazing in the days after her baby was born – but she didn’t sleep and her behaviour became increasingly erratic.

A few weeks later, her mood flipped again. When her baby was three weeks old, Emma took an overdose.

It took a week in hospital for her liver function to return. But even after that, she was in and out of hospital for a year before finally being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and medicated correctly.

“If I had the correct care, and been listened to during my pregnancy or even earlier, I could have avoided taking that overdose – 100%,” she says.

It wasn’t Emma’s first experience of poor mental health – she’d spent her teens seeing doctors and receiving different antidepressants. No one had ever suggested she might have bipolar disorder.

Experts have told the BBC how most people living with bipolar disorder in the UK are “undertreated, undiagnosed and left to try and survive in a system that has failed them”.

The majority who, like Emma, are eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, are incorrectly prescribed antidepressants initially, which makes their symptoms worse rather than better. Experts also say there is a lack of continuity of care from GPs through to psychiatrists.

Their warning comes as data exclusively shared with the BBC suggests the cost of the condition in the UK is now an estimated £9.6bn a year. That equates to more than £300 per taxpayer.

This breakdown includes NHS costs, such as GP services, psychiatrist appointments and visits to A&E and hospital admissions. It also includes economic costs, such as lost days at work and the need for family and friends to take time off to provide informal care.

But it does not include welfare payments for those out of work, or costs for police services dealing with people in crisis.

“This nearly £10bn figure is actually quite conservative,” says Prof Judit Simon, from the Medical University of Vienna, who worked with the BBC to generate the number.

“If this is a government that really wants to try and bring down the welfare bill, then bipolar disorder should be its absolute priority, the target disorder to actually move the dial.”

The data suggests up to 372,000 people with bipolar disorder are currently out of work and claiming benefits in the UK.

For a treatable disease, this number could be slashed if the correct care was on offer, say experts.

Prof Guy Goodwin, emeritus professor of psychiatry at University of Oxford, says: “If you want to cut the costs of a disease, you need to reduce hospital admissions and emergency care. If you don’t focus on cutting hospital admissions then you waste money.”

According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), bipolar disorder is a manageable condition.

Dr Trudi Seneviratne, registrar at the RCP and a commissioner on the Bipolar Commission, says it is “completely treatable” with a combination of medication, talking therapies and lifestyle factors.

“But there are many, many people who are suffering in silence with lower levels of symptoms because there isn’t a good clinical care pathway for them in the UK.”

She says if care for bipolar disorder was fit for purpose, it would cut “the cost to society” as well as reducing “the human suffering this disease unnecessarily causes”.

It is this sense of waste – with people who could be leading a good life but aren’t – that angers experts most, who say it is a neglected diagnosis.

Prof Allan Young, from Imperial College, says: “Bipolar is common, complex and costly – but it is so often unrecognised.

“People know it is there but somehow people are just not being cared for correctly.”

This lack of correct care is what Rosie says resulted in her being arrested at Stansted Airport for jumping the security barriers during a manic episode in her early 20s.

“I was utterly delusional,” she says. Following her arrest, Rosie was taken to A&E and locked in a room. She waited there for more than 12 hours while a bed at a specialist mental health unit was found.

Like Emma, Rosie had been dealing with mental health issues since childhood, but it was only after being in crisis that her condition was recognised. This particular period of psychotic mania had been triggered by a relationship breakdown.

She was sectioned and hospitalised for three months, after which she finally began finding a combination of medications that worked for her.

Now 29, Rosie says she still has high and low periods, but adds that she is far more stable and is able to work part time.

“I was failed,” she says. “I’m told my symptoms were a textbook case for bipolar lows and highs – energetic, grandiose language, erratic – but no one even considered this diagnosis for me until I was sectioned.”

The Maudsley Hospital, in South London, has an intensive specialist care programme for its sickest, most regularly relapsing bipolar patients. The service aims to try and stop patients hitting crisis point.

Similar to services offered in other European nations, the hospital provides group sessions for patients and their families. The classes help patients to understand when an episode might be starting and then contact the service once they spot early warning signs.

They can then attend an outpatient clinic and adjust medications. The relatively cheap programme has seen re-admission rates to hospital fall by 80% as intervention takes place before a crisis.

Prof Young says costs associated with bipolar disorder could be halved with more specialist care programmes.

“Undoubtedly, specialist treatment could contribute to getting lots of people back into work. And we know that work is very good for helping people recover from episodes of mental ill health.”

However, many experts say patients still face a postcode lottery about whether they can see a psychiatrist at all.

Carolyn Chew-Graham, a GP and professor of general practice research at Keele University, says those who are acutely unwell will be picked up quickly by crisis teams but those with “less florid manic episodes” can miss out on referral to specialists for diagnosis.

“There’s a high threshold of referral,” Prof Chew Graham says. “People really have to be quite unwell before they are seen in specialist services”. She says GPs may be reluctant to refer patients – even if they strongly suspect they have bipolar disorder – for fear they will be rejected.

“GPs may think I won’t even consider bipolar because if I mention it to the patient and then I can’t get them seen, I am a bit stuck”.

Prof Young says bipolar patients need long-term specialist care.

“But that’s the frustration here – even though there is strong evidence that specialist care improves the outcomes for the patient, and costs the state less, there are still so few bipolar specialist facilities.

“It’s a tragedy.”

An NHS spokesperson said bipolar disorder could often take time to diagnose because it affected everyone differently and the symptoms were similar to other mental health conditions.

“NHS staff are working incredibly hard to get people diagnosed and reduce waiting times for care.

“Staff are treating a million more people than they were six years ago and are working to transform services alongside this demand – this includes strengthening community services, trialling new 24/7 open access mental health centres and rolling out mental health crisis lines.”

If anything in this article makes you concerned please consult your GP.

If you’ve been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via BBC Action Line.

It has been dubbed one of the world’s rarest treasure troves of art but few people outside its host country know about it.

For decades, masterpieces by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock have been kept in the basement of a museum in Iran’s capital Tehran, shrouded in mystery.

According to estimates in 2018, the collection is worth as much as $3bn.

Only a small portion of the work has been exhibited since the 1979 Iranian Revolution but in recent years, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has been showcasing some of its most captivating pieces.

The Eye to Eye exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in October 2024, was extended twice due to overwhelming public demand, running until January 2025.

The display was widely regarded as one of the most significant exhibitions in the history of the museum, and it also became its most visited.

The showcase featured more than 15 works unveiled for the first time, including a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet – marking its first-ever appearance in an Iranian exhibition.

From abstract expressionism to pop art, the collection at the museum serves as a time capsule of pivotal artistic movements.

Among the artwork is Warhol’s portrait of Farah Pahlavi – Iran’s last queen – a rare piece blending his pop art flair with Iranian cultural history.

Elsewhere, Francis Bacon’s work called Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants shows figures appearing to spy on two naked men lying on a bed.

On the opposite wall in the basement of the museum, a portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is on display in juxtaposition.

The museum was built in 1977 under the patronage of Pahlavi, the exiled widow of the last Shah of Iran who was overthrown during the revolution.

Pahlavi was a passionate art advocate and her cousin, architect Kamran Diba, designed the museum.

It was established to introduce modern art to Iranians and to bridge Iran closer to the international art scene.

The museum soon became home to a stunning array of works by luminaries including Picasso, Warhol and Salvador Dali, alongside pieces by leading Iranian modernists, and quickly established itself as a beacon of cultural exchange and artistic ambition.

But then came the 1979 revolution. Iran became an Islamic republic as the monarchy was overthrown and clerics assumed political control under Ayatollah Khomeini.

Many artworks were deemed inappropriate for public display because of nudity, religious sensitivities or political implications.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Gabrielle with Open Blouse was deemed too scandalous. And Warhol’s portrait of the former queen of Iran was too political. In fact, Pahlavi’s portrait was vandalised and torn apart with a knife during the revolutionary turmoil.

After the revolution, many of the artworks were locked away, collecting dust in a basement that became the stuff of art world legend.

It was only in the late 1990s that the museum reclaimed its cultural significance during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami.

Suddenly the world remembered what it had been missing. Art lovers could not believe their eyes. Van Gogh, Dali, even Monet – all in Tehran.

Some pieces were loaned to major exhibitions in Europe and the United States, briefly reconnecting the collection with the global art world.

Hamid Keshmirshekan, an art historian based in London, has studied the collection and calls it “one of the rarest treasure troves of modern art outside the West”.

The collection includes Henry’s Moore’s Reclining Figure series – an iconic piece by one of Britain’s most celebrated sculptors – and Jackson Pollock’s Mural on Indian Red Ground, a vibrant example of the American’s painting technique pulsing with energy and emotion.

Picasso’s The Painter and His Model – his largest canvas from 1927 – also features, a strong example of his abstract works from the post-cubism period.

And there is Van Gogh’s At Eternity’s Gate – one of the very rare survivals of his first printmaking campaign during which he produced six lithographs in November 1882.

But for art lovers in Britain, the collection is out of reach. The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to Iran and says British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention.

Having a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for detention by the Iranian authorities, it says.

Challenges remain for the museum which operates under a tight budget. Shifting political priorities mean that it often functions more as a cultural hub than a traditional museum.

Yet it continues to be a remarkable institution – an unlikely guardian of modern art masterpieces in the heart of Tehran.