Health boards are failing to treat young people with mental health problems fast enough
Children’s mental health services desperately need additional funding to stop young people waiting months for potentially live-saving treatments.
The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC) has made the call after new figures show eight out of Scotland’s 14 NHS health boards are still failing to provide treatment for children fast enough.
They health boards are failing to meet their legal duty, introduced in December 2014, to provide treatment for young people within 18 weeks of being referred to a mental health specialist.
The coalition, which is made up of independent charities including Who Cares? Scotland, Kindred and Mindroom, says that if health boards were able to even slightly increase expenditure on child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), waiting times would be cut.
We would urge the Scottish Government to act quickly and increase investment from the current figure of less than 0.5% of the NHS budget
Speaking on behalf of the SCSC, Sophie Pilgrim, director of Kindred Scotland, said that only 0.45% of NHS Scotland’s expenditure goes on CAMHS compared to with 0.7% in England and 0.8% in Wales.
“We know that half of all diagnosable health conditions start before the age of 14 and 75% by the age of 21, and as such it is vitally important that we intervene early and ensure that those young people with mental health conditions are able to realise their full potential.
“We would however urge the Scottish Government to act quickly and increase investment from the current figure of less than 0.5% of the NHS budget, to ensure that those NHS boards who are failing to meet waiting time targets are given the support they need to do so, ensuring that those children and young people requiring these services do not miss out.”
Scottish health boards are expected to ensure 90% of young patients see a specialist within 18 weeks of being referred. The figures from the Information Services Division of National Services Scotland, which is part of NHS Scotland, show that from July to September 2015 only 73% of people were seen on time.
NHS Tayside performed the worst, only managing to see 30.8% of patients within the time, but the Borders, Fife, Forth Valley, Grampian, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Shetland also all missed out.
Pilgrim warned that if the target is consistently missed then the long-term cost to will be far higher as those affected are more likely to be unemployed, homeless, get caught up in the criminal justice system, or be require extremely costly long-term care.
"Families usually experience months of waiting even before a referral to CAMHS,” she added.
“The consequent delay in diagnosis and appropriate support can lead to a crisis situation for the child or young person concerned, as well as for their family, and the need for costly extra resources to address this.”
