Britain has one of the lowest numbers of hospital beds in Europe for young people struggling with serious mental health problems. Britain has a 9.4 specialist inpatients bed per 100,000 young people for those who are struggling with conditions such as anxiety, depression, psychosis, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
The UK is placed 18th in a league table of the 28 EU countries. Germany has the most at 64 beds per 100,000 young people. The UK is even lower down the EU league table for the number of psychiatrist specialising in child and adolescent mental health services. The UK only have 4.5 psychiatrists per 100,000 young people it comes 21st. Experts warned that the UK’s low provision meant that troubled under-18s were not getting the care they needed.
Prof Swaran Singh of Warwick University, referring to the NHS’s child and adolescent mental health services said: “Our youth deserve better than what they currently receive. Despite being the sixth-richest country in the world, and with a health service that is said to be the ‘envy of the world’, when it comes to mental health provision for children and young people, the UK sadly lags behind other EU countries on many indicators, especially on the number of CAMHS psychiatrists”
Singh added: “The Milestone project has shown how far we are from providing much-needed help and care to vulnerable young people at the time of their greatest need. Despite repeated promises by successive governments of increased funding into youth mental health care, the state of the services remains parlous,”
A director of campaigns at the charity YoungMinds said that the UK’s lack of beds was forcing young people in a mental health crisis to travel from home just to get a bed in an NHS unit.
A research found that GP services need to be able to offer longer appointments to people who are thinking about suicide, this could reduce the number of deaths relating to suicide. Only 2,000 or the 6,000 people who committed suicide had contact with NHS mental health services before their death and many mo0re had seen their family doctor.
In schools, more than eight out of 10 teachers said mental health among pupils in England has deteriorated in the past two years, there has been a rise in reports for anxiety, self harm and cases of suicide. In a survey of 8,600 school leaders, teachers and support workers, 83% said they had seen an increase in the number of children in schools with poor mental health, increasing to 90% among students in colleges.
The Department for Education said: “We are investing more in mental health support with an additional £2.3bn a year being spent by 2023-24. This means that by 2023-24 an extra 345,000 children and young people up to the age of 25 will benefit from a range of services, including new support teams that will provide additional trained staff to work directly with schools and colleges.”
