Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, responding to the publication of the joint Health and Education Select Committee Report into the Government’s Green Paper on Children’s Mental Health, said:
“The select committee’s stark warning about the scale of the crisis in children’s mental health services mirrors what I have been saying for some time. Many thousands of children are failing to receive support and care when they need it and too often referrals for treatment are only being made when a child reaches crisis point. In the worst cases, children have even attempted to take their own life just to access services.”
“The Committee is right to say the Green Paper is not ambitious enough. It is time for the Government to set itself an ambitious deadline, with staging posts along the way, to deliver a fully joined-up system that closes the gap between spending on adult and children’s mental health services, introduces proper monitoring of need and access, and invests more in early intervention so that problems are dealt with before they become critical.”
