Commenting on the report of the House of Commons Health and
Social Care Committee on children and young people’s mental
health, Julie McCulloch, Director of Policy at the Association of
School and College Leaders, said:
“It is very worrying to see the committee’s conclusion that there
is a risk of mental health provision for children and young
people slipping backwards as a result of the extra demand created
by the coronavirus pandemic and the scale of unmet need which
already existed.
“Mental health services for young people have been under severe
pressure for many years. The government’s underfunding of the
education sector has reduced the capacity of schools and colleges
to provide this form of support, and NHS services for young
people who require specialist help are critically under-resourced
leading to very long waiting times.
“The government’s green paper in 2017 was a step in the right
direction and we welcome the progress made in creating mental
health support teams in a proportion of schools to provide early
intervention to support children and young people.
“However, we share the select committee’s evident disappointment
that no funding to roll them out nationally was identified in the
recent government spending review settlement and we agree that
currently planned timescales lack sufficient ambition.
“We remain gravely concerned about waiting times for children and
young people’s mental health services. The green paper in 2017
set out plans for the NHS to pilot reduced waiting times of
access within four weeks. We fear that many areas far exceed this
target, and only recently we heard from a school leader who
reported a waiting list of 18 months.
“The select committee concludes that significantly more ambition
is needed over the provision of mental health services for
children and young people. We agree.”
