“Even taking into account the significant expansion in children’s mental health services, workforce constraints mean that by 2020/21 we only plan on meeting the needs of a third of children with diagnosable mental health conditions“.
This statement comes from the foreword to Lord Carter’s review of unwarranted variations in mental health services and community health services.
The review considers a range of productivity and efficiency issues across various mental health and community health services. But let’s stay with those children with diagnosable mental health conditions.
Back in 2016, the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health said that “too many people have received no help at all, leading to hundreds of thousands of lives put on hold or ruined, and thousands of tragic and unnecessary deaths”. It spoke of “a real desire to shift towards prevention“. But that desire sounds hollow in the light of Carter’s revelation that two years from now, two thirds of children who may need treatment will have to go without.
Children who do get treatment for mental illness might be considered lucky – except for the fact that their experience, as patients, is consistently poor.
The Care Quality Commission’s most recent Children and Young People’s Survey found that patients with a mental health condition, and their parents and carers, reported significantly worse experience for matters including information and communication, transition and continuity, respect for patient-centred values, involvement of family and friends, and awareness of medical history.
At the start of 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May described mental illness as a “hidden injustice“. We have said before that the injustices are not hidden – they are in plain sight.
Lord Carter’s review outlines ways in which productivity and efficiency improvements across mental health and community health services could save the NHS nearly £1 billion by 2020/21. Putting that saving towards better preventative work in children’s mental health might be a good way to start addressing the injustices that the Prime Minister is so concerned about.
You can download a copy of the report via the Patient Library website.