Children’s mental health services in England are overstretched to the point where young people in some areas are waiting up to two years for treatment. A recent survey of GPs by the charity stem4 found that half said most of their referrals of young people for conditions including anxiety and depression are rejected. One child and adolescent mental health service (Camhs) refused to take on a boy found with a ligature in his room because the fact that he had no marks on his neck meant that he did not meet the threshold for treatment. Figures obtained via a freedom of information request show average waiting times for autism referrals of a year-and-a-half at Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trust, with one child kept waiting for five years.
Perhaps the range of mental health conditions, and the fact that so many people experience symptoms or episodes over their lifetimes, help to explain how these services have been allowed to deteriorate to the point that they have done without a louder public outcry – or closer scrutiny of what is going on. Attention to healthcare has understandably been focused principally on hospitals and Covid over the past two years. The NHS across the UK is understood to be facing an unprecedented crisis of unmeetable demand.
