Invest more in mental health

HARD cases make bad laws, but I was profoundly struck recently by hearing the father of a person with a mental illness telling the story of how his daughter, on the day of her 18th birthday, was removed from a specialist children’s facility and ended up in an adult one, 400 miles from home. With any other illness or condition, this would have caused a national uproar at the time. The fact that it didn’t shows that public opinion – through the media – is still not being engaged enough.

One in 10 children are estimated to have a diagnosable mental illness, and 75% of mental health problems in adulthood started before the age of 18.

There is both a moral and an economic case for dealing with mental ill health among children and teenagers.

Despite securing £1.25bn additional investment for children’s mental health in the coalition Government’s last budget, a survey by the charity Young Minds found that 50% of all clinical commissioning groups are not spending the full allocation on children’s mental health. Instead, it is being diverted to prop up local acute hospitals.

Because there are no maximum waiting time standards, many children experiencing mental ill health are left waiting, sometimes for months, to get any treatment at all.

The Government has a duty