Councils 'overlook' children's mental health needs

Research conducted by the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition has found that only 33 per cent of health and wellbeing boards have included in their joint strategic needs assessments (JSNAs) a specific section addressing children and young people’s mental health.

Instead, the majority of the boards have scattered mental health data throughout the JSNA document, making it more likely to be overlooked by professionals wanting to base service provision decisions on it, the coalition says.

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, local authorities and clinical commissioning groups are required through health and wellbeing boards to undertake a JSNA to assess the current and future social care and mental and physical health needs of the local population.

But the Overlooked and Forgotten report shows that one in three JSNAs do not include an estimated or actual level of needs assessment for children’s mental health services in their area.

In addition it says where JSNAs do include information on service demand, this is often based on figures for critical services only, such as admissions to hospital and referrals to child and adolescent mental health services, and extrapolations from national data published in 2004.

The review also found that a third of joint health and wellbeing strategies (JHWSs) do not include children’s mental health, despite the requirement to do so. JHWSs set out local health priorities and how they will be met.

Barbara Rayment, chair of the coalition, said: “Local authorities have difficult decisions to make about how to allocate dwindling health budgets. While it is very welcome that two-thirds of JHWSs are prioritising children and young people’s mental health, too many are not giving this the priority it needs in order to help them develop the resilience and self-esteem necessary for making healthy choices and to deal with the challenges they face.