‘Thousands of young Scots with mental health issues denied help’

Scottish Labour has called for progress on a review into why so many young people are being turned down for specialist mental health treatment.

There have been almost 18,000 rejected referrals for Child and Adolescent Mental Healthservices(camhs)support over the past three years.

The figure includes 3,423 rejections since March 2017, when the Scottish Government promised to conduct an audit of the referrals.

In June the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) called for the issue to be addressed as quickly as 0 Anas Sarwar: ‘questions over enough resources for NHS’ possible. However, Scottish Labour said there was a lack of clarity on what progress the audit is making, or if it has even started.

The party’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar said: “Thousands of vulnerable young people are being denied the help they need.

“The vast majority of these referrals will be from health professionals and it raises questions about whether our NHS is getting the resources it needs to cope with demand. Responding to Labour mental health minister Maureen Watt said: “We have begun a review of rejected referrals to CAMHS, which includes work by SAMH to gather evidence from young people, their families and carers to inform the approach to mental health services – including recommendations for improving the CAMHS experience.”