One in four hospital trusts do not have enough separate facilities for treating children, according to the report, which also found that the majority of young patients in psychiatric hospitals, some as young as 12, were being admitted to adult wards.
Carolyn Taylor, health visitor and chair of the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association, said children's medical care could suffer if they were treated by non-child professionals, and that there were also child protection issues.
She said: "We are constantly concerned with children's safety. So is it appropriate to treat children in an environment where there are unscreened adults? There are child protection and supervision issues."
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