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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Anna Bawden

Number of children in mental health crisis at record high in England

Thoughtful girl looking out of a window
The number of children and young people undergoing treatment or waiting to start care also reached new records, with 466,250 open referrals in May. Photograph: fizkes/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The number of children in mental health crisis has reached record levels in England, analysis of NHS data by the mental health charity YoungMinds shows.

For the first time, urgent referrals of under-18s to mental health crisis teams reached more than 3,500 in May, three times higher than in May 2019. And in the year to March 2023 there were 21,555 urgent referrals to mental health crisis teams, up 46% on 2022, the charity found.

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