Under-18s denied urgent mental health treatment

A survey for the YoungMinds charity has found that troubled teenagers seeking urgent help from NHS mental health services are being denied treatment.

Three in four GPs have said that they do not believe the under-18s they refer to child and adolescent mental health services will end up being treated. In fact, 76 per cent of the 1,008 GPs surveyed said they did not usually feel confident a young person they referred to CAMHS would receive treatment for their illness, and only 10 per cent were confident that treatment would follow.

Nine in 10 GPs have seen a rise in the past three years in the number of young people seeking support for mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

The findings have prompted concerns because of the sharp increase in mental health problems among children and young people, which experts have linked to exam stress, social media, body image issues and the effects of dysfunctional backgrounds.

Emma Thomas, chief executive of YoungMinds, said: “As these worrying results show, GPs are on the frontline when it comes to mental health. But too often they don’t believe that there is good enough early support in their community. That leaves them grappling with the difficult choice of trying to help young people themselves, or referring them to mental health services, even when those services are overstretched.

“This means many young people either receive support from GPs who have the best of intentions but may not feel equipped to provide the right help, or face long waiting times for specialist services, which may then turn them away because of high thresholds for treatment.”