Why is it hard to solve X?
WE BritsBr often boast that our Nation National Health Service is the envy of the world. Maybe we’re deluding ourselves. Part Parts of it are in tatters, with politicia politicians, old and new, afraid to take the blam blame or spend the money needed to make it function. Look howho it grabbed one bigwig this week. Sir J James Munby, who is the top fami family court judge in England a and Wales, came face to fac face with just how appalling things are for young p people with mental healthhea problems. He was d dealing with a suicidal t teenage girl, known as X X, who will be freed from custody on August 1 14, presumably locked up for some petty crim crime, or for fear of selfself-harm. S She had nowhere to go and desperately needed to be place placed in care because she’s tried to kill or harm herself more than a hundred times. Probab Probably straight away, the judge warned, s she will succeed in a suicide bid. He stres stressed: “We’ll have blood on our hands hands,” and he’d never felt such “shamesha and embarrassment” at bei being powerless to help her. Clearly furious, he ordered that copies of his judgment be immediately sent directly to H Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Education Secretary Justine Greening and Justice Secretary David Lidington, as well as the chief executive of NHS England. Poor X, a child in need of loving, caring, effective help, is just one of thousands who need much SO much more than so-called care in the community has ever offered. Thankfully she was later found a bed. But back as far as the 60s, community care was thought to be a better choice than those awful long- term mental hospitals that had earned such a bad name. But i t neglected t hose who r eally needed hands-on residential help. Care in the community is now widely held to be a catastrophic and multi- million pound mistake. Even former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has called it a “£100billion failure” according to the Centre for Social Justice, which he founded. The centre says the £6billion-a-year cost of dealing with mental health is the SINGLE biggest burden on the NHS. Mental health has been neglected for decades. We are, as the good judge said, one of the richest countries in the world. Our children and young people are our future. X and those like her are part of our future. Their prospects, in our brilliant Britain, are a disgrace.