Plan to boost mental wellbeing

The creation of a new 10-year plan for mental health in England is an opportunity to improve children’s mental wellbeing services and tackle long-term problems with support, campaigners say.

To shape thinking on the cross-government plan, a 12-week consultation has been launched to gather views on the priorities put forward by ministers.

Preventing mental ill health, the role of early intervention and how best to promote positive mental wellbeing are among issues covered in the consultation. The government also wants views on the effectiveness of current mental health treatments and how best to support people in crisis.

In his forward to the consultation paper, Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said he wanted to hear from young people with experience of mental health problems as well as children’s professionals and campaign organisations working with disadvantaged groups.

“We want to build consensus on the priority actions we need to collectively take to reduce the number of people who go on to develop mental health conditions, especially for our children and young people and for communities at greatest risk,” he added.

Ministers see improving mental health as crucial to the success of its levelling up agenda and the consultation paper highlights links between experiencing trauma, poverty and discrimination and higher rates of mental ill health.

It recognises that children and young people with mental health conditions are more likely to experience disruption to their education, through time off school and exclusions, than children without mental health problems.

The paper also sets out the scale of the challenge with NHS Digital data showing 16 per cent of five- to 16-year-olds now have a diagnosable mental health condition. It also cites data from Papyrus, a charity for the prevention of youth suicide, which saw a 20 per cent rise in contacts for support in 2020 compared with a year earlier.

The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition said the consultation “is a real opportunity to shape the future of mental health support for babies, children and young people”, but urged ministers to ensure it has prevention and early intervention at its heart, echoing calls from campaigners and service providers (see expert views).

Charlotte Rainer, coalition lead, said: “We need to invest in policies and interventions that will promote better mental health, while also ensuring that young people can get the help they need at a time and place that is right for them. For example, there has been widespread support for a national network of early support hubs to provide easy-to-access, drop-in mental health support for young people, yet it’s still a postcode lottery whether these are available or not.”

The consultation ends on 5 July.

• Mental health and wellbeing plan discussion paper and consultation from Department of Health and Social Care, April 2022 https://tinyurl.com/5n6z8j5p
  
  

PROVIDER VIEW
INCREASE CAPACITY OF SERVICES

By Sean Duggan, chief executive, NHS Confederation’s mental health network

Rates of mental disorder in children and young people were high before the pandemic, but have increased from one in nine in 2017, to one in six in 2020.

Children and young people are often at crisis point when they access services, and we have seen a 52 per cent increase in emergency referrals between 2019 and 2021.

The number of young people in services urgently needing help for eating disorders has also increased by 72 per cent between 2019 and 2021.

These are very ill children and young people who often need to be admitted to hospital and staying for lengthy periods of time.

Whilst we have high rates of mental disorder in children and young people, we also know that up to 70 per cent of them are not accessing specialist mental health services.

To reach them we urgently need to increase the capacity of services including mental health support in schools, digital mental health provision and youth hubs, as well as traditional mental health services.

There also needs to be a greater focus on prevention and early intervention, to reduce the number of children and young people needing to access specialist mental health services.

The government’s discussion paper is timely, and we hope it will help shape priorities for the next 10-year plan for mental health services.

CAMPAIGNER VIEW
WE NEED TO IMPROVE ACCESS

By Olly Parker, head of external affairs, YoungMinds

Young people’s mental health is in crisis – this generation has faced unprecedented challenges during the pandemic and we are only just starting to see the long-term effects on their mental health, with record numbers seeking help. On top of this, we know that three quarters of all mental health problems develop before people reach the age of 24.

This call for evidence is an acknowledgement of the significance of the situation, so we expect the plan that comes from it will meet the challenges young people face with ambition.

With sufficient investment, the final plan could have a real, positive and lasting impact on young people’s mental health for the next decade.

From recent research we carried out we know that young people want the education system to work better for them – from the way behaviour is dealt with to access to mental health support in schools and the approach to assessment. We know that they want to be able to access support close to home without needing an appointment or to meet a clinical threshold – which is why we expect the plan to deliver a national network of early support hubs. We also know that young people are finding it incredibly difficult to access help through CAMHS, and often have to wait a long time.

We will be doing everything in our power to make sure young people’s voices are heard in this call for evidence and their needs are at the heart of this plan.