Mental health care for youth ‘inadequate’

A new survey has showed that the majority of specialist nurses say mental health care for young people isn't good enough.

According to the survey of 631 workers in children and adolescent services, carried out by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) for the Guardian, 43 per cent said things were getting worse, with understaffing and delays seen as the main problems. Seven out of 10 specialist nurses believe that NHS services are insufficient.

Additionally, 73 per cent of the workers said there were too few nurses, 72 per cent said there were delays in patients getting appointments and 69 per cent pointed to young people being sent ‘out of area’ to get inpatient care, because of bed shortages in their area.

Fiona Smith, the RCN’s professional lead for children and young people’s nursing, said: “These results tell us that things are seriously poor. Mental health nurses working in children’s services tell me that they have never known it so bad.

“We are failing young people with mental health problems by not providing services and interventions in a timely manner. It’s foolish of the NHS and the government not to really focus on meeting these young people’s needs, because we know that with [the] three out of four adults with mental health problems, their symptoms began in childhood.”