Three months before voters go to the polls, Labour is starting to trickle out some of the policy pledges on children and young people it is likely to feature in its general election manifesto. Last month, it outlined what it called "ambitious" plans to "reverse the damage" inflicted on child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) by funding reform through raising the measly six per cent of the NHS mental health budget spent on under-18s.
Labour also claims coalition cuts to early intervention services will be reversed, with better and quicker early help provided along with an expansion of school-based counselling and talking therapies.
In its efforts to "weaponise" the NHS, Labour has a point over CAMHS spending - Department of Health figures show the amount spent in real terms has fallen since 2010. But, with some justification, the government can point to the fact that it has invested in children's mental health in other ways: through the expansion of the children and young people's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative, development of the Troubled Families programme and attempts to boost the number of in-patient beds.
But behind the political rhetoric and politicking, Labour's announcement appears to reflect a wider shift in how the main parties are talking about mental health generally, and more specifically a recognition that the best way of reducing the future disease burden is to focus more spending at children and young people when they first experience problems.
Last November, the Conservatives unveiled plans to improve awareness through better education and a beefed-up school-based counselling service. A month earlier, the Lib Dems announced the first set of waiting times targets for mental health services, including a two-week timescale for young people suffering an early psychotic episode to be seen by a clinician.
The pledges are a far cry from the 2010 election, where CAMHS got barely a mention in the main parties' manifestos. Such is the shift in attitudes among policymakers that it has got mental health campaigners pinching themselves and actually believing that the "Cinderella service" tag that CAMHS has worn for so long may finally be shed once and for all.
The challenge of course will be to turn the rhetoric into reality - top of that list must be to reduce the outrageously high CAMHS waiting lists in many parts of the country. Waiting nine months to see a mental health specialist, as some young people have to, is a national disgrace that would not be tolerated if it affected an NHS service for adults. Long waiting times have been a reality in CAMHS long before 2010, with successive governments guilty for making little inroads into the problem. A strict and easy-to-measure waiting time target from GP referral to treatment by a mental health worker is urgently needed. This should be set initially at 12 weeks, and gradually tapered down to 10, then eight weeks - with sanctions for those who flout it.
With cross-party support, extra investment through rebalancing the mental health budget, and increasing public recognition of the importance of mental health, the future could finally be looking up for CAMHS and, with it, the overall wellbeing of our nation's young people.
derren.hayes@markallengroup.com
