Children facing long waits and ‘inappropriate care’ in mental health services, report says

Education union says health and social care’s warning is ‘very worrying’

MPs have raised concerns over mental health provision for children in a new report (Getty)

Children are waiting “far too long” to access mental health services and are facing “inappropriate care” on wards, according to a new report by MPs.

The Health and Social Care Committee warned NHS child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) risk “slipping backwards” without urgent action, as it grapples with increased demand and the scale of unmet need.

NHS data has suggested more children are suffering from poor mental health since the start of the pandemic – which kept children away from school, friends and hobbies during lockdowns and Covid restrictions.

One in six children were estimated as having a probable mental health disorder in 2020 and 2021 – up from one in nine in 2017.

“This is placing a massive additional strain on already stretched children and young people’s mental health services,” the new parliamentary committee report said.

It highlighted concerns over mental health provision on offer, including children receiving care on wards far from home and referrals to specialist services being “inappropriately rejected”.

The health and social care committee also said waiting times for CAMHS “remain far too long”.

“It also remains the case that there are too many children and young people in inpatient units subject to inappropriate care: far from home, without adequate understanding of their rights, and subject to restrictive interventions,” it said.

The MPs said the combination of unmet need from before the Covid pandemic and additional demand for CAMHS caused by it “means that the scale and speed of improvements planned by the NHS are simply not sufficient for the task at hand”.

“Significantly more ambition is needed and without urgent action there is a risk of provision slipping backwards,” the report added.

Julie McCulloch from the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said this conclusion was “very worrying”.

“The government’s underfunding of the education sector has reduced the capacity of schools and colleges to provide this form of support, and NHS services for young people who require specialist help are critically under-resourced leading to very long waiting times,” she added.

The MPs’ report said smaller problems “too often escalate to the point of crisis” due to long waiting times and high thresholds for access to mental health services.

But crisis care is “fraying at the edges”, the report said, adding its panel rated this service as “requires improvement”.

Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the health and social care committee, said: “Partly because of the pandemic, we are seeing demand for mental health treatment pushing NHS services to breaking point.

“Whilst we recognise that capacity to provide such services is increasing, we are not convinced it is happening at a fast enough rate.”

The former health secretary added: “There is a growing risk that elective and emergency care pressures will mean mental health services once again become the poor relation.”

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Everyone should have access to safe, appropriate mental health care and we are transforming NHS services backed by an extra £2.3bnper year by 2023-24 to allow hundreds of thousands more children to access support.

“We recognise the impact the pandemic has had on everyone, especially children and young people who have faced disruption to their education, and have committed an additional £500 million this year to support those most affected, including £79m to expand children’s mental health services.”