Over 270,000 kids still await mental health support in England

LONDON, ENGLAND — Some 270,300 kids in the United Kingdom are still waiting to receive mental health support after being referred to the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services (CYPMHS).

Figures from National Health Services England show that some 949,200—or 8% of England’s 11.9 million children—were referred to the CYPMHS. Thirty-two percent, or 305,000, have received care, while 270,300 are still waiting for support, and 372,800 have had their referrals closed.

Children in the northern city of Sunderland waited an average of 147 days before being tended to, compared with a national average of 35 days. Meanwhile, In Southend, in the southeastern county of Essex, children waited just 4 days on average for care.

“Staffing shortages and long-standing under-investment in mental health settings are making a tough job even tougher,” said Saffron Cordery, Deputy chief executive of hospital management body NHS Providers.

In the United States, healthcare organizations are using virtual nurses in combination with artificial intelligence to fill workforce gaps. These ratios are constantly modified depending on patient inflow and their corresponding needs. 

The National Health Service, the UK’s public health system, provides most healthcare services free of charge.

The Children’s Commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, is not surprised by the increased demand for mental health services, as the kids are flooded with all sorts of information and bad news. 

“For children and young people two years can be a significant portion of their young lives, so the long waiting times experienced by some children in this report can feel [agonizingly] long,” de Souza noted. 

Paul Evans, Director of the NHS Support Federation, said the supply and demand gap is widening due to weakness in NHS workforce planning, which has been disabled for many years by underfunding. He highlighted the need for a long-term strategy to raise NHS capacity. 

“Unfortunately the government is still to learn that the policy of underfunding the NHS and shifting more patients into the private sector is no guarantee for the quantity or quality of services that NHS patients need,” Evans said.