Figures from government health and education departments also reveal themajority of local authorities will fail to achieve top ratings ondeveloping comprehensive services ahead of the publication ofperformance results in November. And they confirm reports that healthand local authorities are unlikely to meet public service agreementtargets on child mental health by the end of this year.
Research shows the highest spending authorities, in North CentralLondon, spend 27.14 per child annually, compared to the lowestspending authorities in West Midlands South, which spend 2.39.The average spend per child is 8.63.
For the first time, figures for local authorities have been gathered aspart of a national programme on benchmarking child and adolescent mentalhealth services by Durham University. Until now, this programme hasfocused on tracking the progress of health areas in developing childmental health services since 2002.
However, the atlas for 2005/06 has also mapped local authority areasfollowing moves to scrutinise them on the same measures in this year'sAnnual Performance Assessment.
To provide a full service, children should receive 24-hour cover, haveaccess to services for mental health and learning disabilities and haveappropriate services up to the age of 18.
Results, submitted by 98 per cent of local authorities, show themajority have some services in place. But to meet the top ratings,authorities must have full coverage. Just three per cent of authoritieshave achieved this on providing learning disability services, 17 percent on services for 16- and 17-year-olds and 37 per cent on providing24-hour cover.
However, children in many areas have no services at all. A clearerpicture on this is spelled out by results obtained directly from childand adolescent mental health services. These show that a third of areashave no 24-hour cover, and just under half do not have mental healthservices for children with learning difficulties or appropriate servicesfor 16- and 17-year-olds.
Dr Greg Richardson, chair of the child and adolescent faculty of theRoyal College of Psychiatrists, said the main problem with developingservices was the unwillingness of primary care trusts to commissionthem.
"The new indicators mean councils will have to work more closely withhealth commissioners but few commissioners are well-informed about childand adolescent services," he said.
David Eaton, head of primary care liaison at Blackpool Child andAdolescent Mental Health Service, said the pace of development reflecteda "general feeling of anxiety" that single agencies did not want to besaddled with finding additional resources.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said the wide variation on localauthority spending reflected different interpretations of whatconstitutes a child and adolescent mental health service.
