Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (who will lead for the Opposition when the Mental Health Reform Bill is debated at Westminster in 2022) has denounced the availability of mental health service provision currently offered to children.
As Parliament begins the summer recess, Dr Khan has reminded the nation that children will have no respite from their mental health problems because the services available for them fall pitifully short.
Figures that Dr Khan has obtained from the Government reveal that:
- At least 73,079 children had their cases closed before receiving NHS treatment for their mental health problems in the year 2020/21
- Only 22 NHS Trusts out of 45 supplied data on request
- Dr Khan predicts that the true figure of children excluded from service provision will be nearer a horrific 200,000 because of the increase in mental health illness in children due to the pandemic
- The total number referred to the NHS in 2020/21 was 195,000
- The longest single delay came in the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust who took 737 days to treat a child with autism
- 6,117 children referred at the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust went untreated, making 81% of the total there.
Helen Clark, Director of the Child Mental Health Charter Campaign said:
‘These figures are truly appalling; even more so when there is as yet no guarantee whatsoever that the new Mental Health Bill, when it is presented to the House in 2022 will actually contain anything other than the most rudimentary reference to children and young people –those who are at the final clinical stage of their mental health journey.
It is essential now that politicians like Dr Khan have more facts and figures at their disposal than this with which to challenge the Government’s present and intended paucity of provision. I am now calling upon every registrant to ask their own MP what the figures are for the provision of mental health secrecies for children in their own NHS Trusts.
Write to your MP or make an appointment to see them at their constituency surgery and ask them to provide this information. When you have it, please email me direct at helenrclark@ntlworld.com and I will ensure that Dr Khan is given a more complete picture of the true state of national provision.
MPs are not at Westminster right now, but they are still representing their constituents and they are, of course, getting paid to do so.
Help the Child Mental Health Charter to help a child TODAY!’
