Suicidal young being ignored, psychotherapy study finds

CHILDREN are being turned away from psychotherapy unless they are “acutely suicidal”, a report has claimed.

A survey by the Association of Child Psychotherapists has found its members stating that unless mentally ill children threatened suicide, they were not being referred. Psychotherapists in the NHS reported that cases had to be “re-referred several times and reach a crisis point before being accepted”.

One in three of the 416 psychotherapists who responded to the survey said they felt the framework they had to work within was “mostly or completely inadequate” – and 73 per cent felt staff morale had changed for the worse.

One psychotherapist said a lack of resources made it hard to provide for children in need of mental health support who were not “currently suicidal”.

Those in danger of becoming psychopathic were among those who practitioners said were turned away for treatment because it was assessed they did “not yet pose a risk”.

In one case study in the report, a girl who was threatening to kill herself by jumping from a window was not prioritised for treatment because it was decided that she was safe because “her mother was checking the windows”.

Respondents also said specialist staff were being replaced by managers, and mental health services were turning to locums and agency staff to fill gaps.

Dr Jon Goldin, vice chairman of the child and adolescent psychiatry faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, backed calls by the association for a review of specialist services.

Last year Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, announced £1.3 billion to transform mental health services to allow the NHS to treat one million extra patients by 2020.