Youth mental health referrals fell 55% at start of pandemic

The number of children and young people being referred for specialist mental health help fell by more than 55 per cent in the first three months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New figures show 3,985 children and young people were referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health S er vices (CAMHS) in the period April to June - down from 9,017 in the previous three-month period.

As well as the 55.8 per cent drop in referrals, official figures show a 13.6 per cent drop in the number of youngsters who star ted treatment with CAM H S. The figures, from Public Health Scotland, also show that more than 11 p er cent of those waiting for a CAM H Sap point men th ad been on the list for longer than a year without being seen.

According to the data, a total of 3,561 children and young people began treatment with CAMHS in the three months to the end of June, compared with 4,122 in the previous quarter. A report from Public Health Scotland said :“Since March 2020 there has been a decline in both referrals and patients seen in response to measures taken at a national level to prevent the transmission of Covid-19.”

By the end of June 2020 there were 9,986 children and young people waiting to start treatment with CAMHS - down from the total of 12,022 recorded at the end of March.

The report said :“The decrease in the number of patients waiting is largely due to the reduction of referrals and is in direct correlation to the pandemic.”

Across Scotland, 11.4 per cent of those waiting for a CAMHS appointment had spent more than a year on the list without yet being seen, the figures showed.

In NHS Ayrshire and Arran, 46 per cent of those waiting for a CAMHS appointment at the end of June had been doing so for 53 weeks or longer.

The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC), an alliance of independent and third sector providers of children’s services, said that by June 2020 there were 1,136 children and young people who had been waiting more than a year for treatment, compared with 581 at the same point last year. An SC SC spokesman described the figures as “deeply troubling”, adding that they “point to a ‘perfect storm’ for our young people, with increased demand coupled with cuts in services”.

He said :“While referrals have dropped during lockdown and children are not accessing support, we are storing up immense problems for the future as specialist mental health services face being over whelmed due to greatly increased demand.”