Psychiatry DOES help young’s mental health
I WOULD like to comment on the letter from Brian Daniels, executive director of Citizens Commission on Human Rights (“Children are not experimental animals”, February 11).
On the CCHR website it says it “was co-founded by a professor emeritus of psychiatry”. If CCHR believes that psychiatry, etc, are ‘pseudo-sciences’, it seems contradictory to describe psychiatry as a “pseudo-science” but to use the qualifications of the co-founder as an expression of professional gravitas.
Psychiatry is a specialism of medicine; renowned UK universities including Cambridge, Oxford, Kings College London, University College London and Edinburgh all offer degree courses in psychiatry and psychology.
Mr Daniels mentions young people with ADHD. The ADHD Foundation state that “There is a great deal of myth and ignorance about ADHD”, but the latest research in the Lancet medical journal suggests that “it is actually a genetic condition and that children with ADHD were more likely to have duplications of small segments of their DNA, or to have sections that were missing”.
To access a psychiatrist for ADHD, guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) state that teachers, social workers, GPs, educational psychologists, special educational needs officer or paediatricians can refer children to a psychiatrist for symptoms which are causing concern in social and educational environments.
In fact, female children are more likely to be underdiagnosed with ADHD! Surely Mr Daniels isn’t challenging the professional qualifications or legitimacy of a whole raft of professionals who identify and act on the symptoms of ADHD? And that a “list! of emotional and behavioural characteristics are-symptoms.
As a registered company CCHR must find it galling for any tax payment to fund mental health. As the majority of people in the UK know, mental health has not achieved parity of esteem with physical health regarding NHS spending. That is why mental health patients are in beds out of area. Mental health, including children’s mental health, needs more resources and funding, not less.
Research shows that less than 1% of the NHS budget is spent on child and adolescent mental health services, and only 8.7% of the total mental health budget goes on under-18s.
Every child deserves the chance to fulfil their full potential. If the child has a mental health condition, then accessing psychiatric care with reviews for that child along with appropriate medication and/or therapies as early as possible is vital.
I apologise for the length of this letter, but mental health is a topic close to my heart.
Julie Webster, Ripley