Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
HERSELF MAKES HEARTFELT PLEA
NHS underfunding and rise in troubled children have caused ‘perfect storm’, says expert
FINED NEARLY half of all taxpayers’ money spent on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) last year went to private sector firms such as The Priory Group.
And that’s because the NHS doesn’t have the resources or numbers of trained staff to deal with the explosion in troubled youngsters throughout Britain, an expert reveals.
Dr Ananata Dave, 51, the Royal College of Psychiatrists safeguarding lead, called the children’s mental health emergency “a perfect storm”.
She said: “If children and young people in crisis do not get help in a timely manner it puts lives at risk. We need trained people like doctors, nurses and other qualified mental health people to make sure they are seen in time.
“But in the last eight to 10 years there has been chronic underfunding. Now we are seeing a cumulative effect of more people seeking help and a decrease in resources. It’s created a perfect storm. It’s sad because we’re encouraging young people and families to seek help, and to get it early, but on the other hand when they do seek help it’s not available. “Certain problems have seen an increase, like self-harm and eating disorders. We also see more complex problems coming forward, like depression and anxiety. But the resourcing of services and the number of professional teams has not kept pace with demand. Services are
WARNING also patchy across the country.” As 44 per cent of the CAMHS budget was outsourced, waiting lists for youngsters desperate for treatment has kept growing. Dr Dave said in some cases “money has not been sent to the front line but diverted to other places”.
She added that social media was helping fuel an alarming rise in selfharm and body image disturbances.
“There are cases where vulnerable young people have been directed towards sites which promote self harm, and sites where thinness is seen as desirable,” she said. “But we also know with young people and mental health there’s a combination of factors – school, problems, academic difficulties, bullying.
WEAKNESSES
“There’s an awareness it’s not just speciality services that need to be involved, it needs to be the wider schools, voluntary departments, as well as A&Es.” A spokesman for The Priory Group, fined £300,000 over Amy El-Keria’s suicide, said: “We would like to repeat our sincere and profound apologies to her family. Following the incident, we took significant steps to strengthen those areas at the hospital where the court found there were weaknesses. “The hospital is making substantial progress under an experienced senior management team.”
The family were guided in their pursuit of justice by charity INQUEST.org, which provides expertise on staterelated deaths.