A survey by the charity Stem4 has found that children and young people who are anxious, depressed or are self-harming are being denied help from swamped NHS child and adolescent mental health services. The survey of GPs has found that even under-18s with an eating disorder or psychosis are being refused care by overstretched CAMHS services, which insist that they are not sick enough to warrant treatment.
In one case, a crisis CAMHS team in Wales would not immediately assess the mental health of an actively suicidal child who had been stopped from jumping off a building earlier the same day unless the GP made a written referral. In another, a CAMHS service in eastern England declined to take on a 12-year-old boy found with a ligature in his room because the lack of any marks on his neck meant its referral criteria had not been met.
The survey of 1,001 GPs across the UK who have sought urgent help for under-18s who are struggling mentally revealed that CAMHS teams, already unable to cope with the rising need for treatment before Covid struck, have become even more overloaded because of the pandemic’s impact on youth mental health.
Full story in The Guardian, 4 March 2022