CYP Now - Ministers call for overhaul of 'broken' mental health system

At last month's National Children's and Adult Services conference in Manchester, government ministers were queuing up to talk about the importance of supporting children and young people with mental health problems and, more specifically, the dire state of the services that are supposed to do so.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the transition arrangements from children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to the adult system was of particular concern to him, while Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said he was aware of three cases involving young people in his constituency where there was a problem with the transition process.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan talked more broadly about how young lives can be "shattered by poor mental health". She said the Department for Education is working with the Department of Health to "find solutions to the problem with the availability of CAMHS".

Her junior minister Sam Gyimah is leading on this in his role overseeing the children's mental health taskforce, the government's hastily commissioned review of what changes need to be made to CAMHS.

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