Editorial: Mental Health Services are closing the gap

While the situation is improving, there is still no real consistency in provision throughout the country. For teenagers at risk of mental health problems, this is a problematic and traumatic time, when the first incidence of psychosis often occurs. But they can find themselves batted from pillar to post, lumped in with inappropriate adult provision at 17, or left in limbo at 16 to 18.

Four years ago, the Government responded to lobbying from organisations such as mental health charity YoungMinds and advice and counselling service Youth Access. In its NHS Plan of 2000, the Department of Health paved the way for 50 early intervention pilot projects, backed by 50m. The pilots were designed to give early and intensive support to the estimated 7,500 young people who each year experience a first episode of psychosis such as schizophrenia.