Parents feared son would kill himself
VULNERABLE children desperate for help with mental illness are being forced to wait up to THREE YEARS for treatment.
And a Sunday Mirror investigation – launched after the Tories pledged £1.4billion to transform young people’s mental health care – has revealed a shameful postcode lottery of waiting times.
One expert said they are so long in some parts of the UK worried youngsters feel they will only get help if they try to kill themselves.
Our Time to Change campaign is fighting to end discrimination against people with mental health conditions – and our latest findings shocked health experts.
We used Freedom of Information laws to discover one child is still waiting for treatment from the West London Mental Health Trust after a staggering 156 weeks.
The Trust said some of its patients never receive treatment as they fail to keep appointments.
Another child from Hampshire had to wait over three years.
Health authority documents showed 52 youngsters, with conditions like depression, eating disorders and anxiety, had waited two to three years, while 1,060 faced waits of one to two years.
But the real numbers will be higher, as half of the 60 mental health trusts in England did not respond to our request for data. The longest TEENAGER George Hodgson faced a 40-week wait for NHS treatment when he started suffering from panic attacks and obsessive compulsive disorder.
The 16-year-old was washing his hands up to 100 times a day, could not go out without his parents and was so crippled by anxiety he considered killing himself.
His parents were so terrified about what he might do while waiting for help on the NHS, they paid for private therapy.
George, now 22, of Winchester, Hampshire, said: “It scares me to think what would have happened if my parents hadn’t been able to afford for me to go private. I was in that very, very dark place having
average waiting time was 20 weeks, recorded by Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust. But 232 children had actually been on its lists for over a year. And the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust had 227 kids waiting for over 12 months. NHS England said access to mental health services will “significantly expand” by 2021. But experts say that is not soon enough. Tom Madders, of charity YoungMinds, said: “These shocking figures are yet more suicidal thoughts. I’d be at a bus stop or a train station, and I’d think, ‘Why don’t I just jump?’
“It was almost like a psychosis. My world shrunk. I was confined to my bedroom, I didn’t want to go out, I cut off my friends.
“It’s terrifying to hear young people are waiting as long as three years. I was lucky to be able to go private. But many children don’t have that option.”
George, now recovered after three years of treatment, visits schools, colleges and universities encouraging young people to open up about mental health.
He has also launched a mental health-themed fashion brand called Maison de Choup.
evidence of the urgent mental health crisis for children.”
Demand for treatment is on the rise. Dr Bernadka Dubicka, from the Royal College of Psychiatrists said: “We’re seeing the effects of the recession, with young people worried about their futures, and the 24-7 pressures of social media.”
Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield said: “I’ve talked to young people who felt they needed to try to take their own lives to get help.
“The system should deal with problems early, not leave children to reach crisis point.”