Suicidal children forced to wait months for a mental health referral

Suicidal children are being forced to wait months for a mental health referral, the Telegraph has learnt.

Thresholds for gaining access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) have risen as budgets have been stretched to the point when children in desperate need of help are being turned away, campaigners say.

They are now demanding a change in the law, urging the Government to create a protocol and additional funding to ensure children at risk get urgent and appropriate care. They warned there was a huge gap “between rhetoric and reality.”

Latest figures suggest the number of referrals to specialist children's mental health services has increased by 26 per cent in the last five years, despite a population increase of only three per cent.

More than 500 children with severe or complex mental health issues needing specialist help waited longer than a year for treatment. Half of the 11,500 who needed treatment waited for more than 18 weeks following their initial assessment.

It comes as social media firms have been accused of “losing control” of self harm material being promoted on their platforms after a father accused Instagram of “helping to kill” his 14-year-old daughter, Molly Russell, who had been looking at suicide and depression images before taking her own life.

Dr Pooky Knightsmith, a mental health campaigner and vice chair of the Children Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, said: “A couple of years ago I’d be saying ‘It’s difficult to get referral into CAMHS but if a child is actively suicidal they’ll always get seen quickly’ - that is not a given these days.

“The stakes are so high.  We are literally talking about lives lost because our services are so stretched.”

Emma Thomas, chief executive of YoungMinds, said: “We receive calls every day to our helpline from parents whose children have been waiting for mental health support, or been turned down because thresholds for treatment are so high. “In some cases, parents tell us that their children are feeling suicidal, but still can’t get help from CAMHS.”

She said that while the NHS Long Term Plan included welcome commitments on improving mental health support for children, it was vital that it lead to real improvements and greater investment in community support beyond the NHS, so young people get help when problems first emerge.

The NSPCC also warned that every year, thousands of children were failing to get the help they need from overstretched services and said that rising numbers were contacting Childline with suicidal thoughts.

A spokesman said it was “vital” they get easy access to professional mental health services, adding: “More than 50,000 referrals to CAMHS were rejected in 2016/17 and waiting times varied from two days to more than five and a half months. “Childline is often a lifeline to children dealing with mental health issues who do not meet the clinical threshold for access to CAMHS.”

Natasha Devon, a mental health campaigner, called on Jackie Doyle-Price, Minister for Suicide Prevention, to ensure specific and significant financial provision for young people who have reached crisis point as well as early intervention strategies.

“I have been working in schools for more than a decade and, during that time, I have heard stories of children who are self-harming and suicidal being refused treatment more and more frequently,” she said.

“Whenever I have approached the government on any matter relating to mental health, I am always palmed off with the same standard letter in which they assure me they take the issue very seriously and are investing record levels of funding. Yet my experience on the ground demonstrate the huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality.”

Gill Rughoobeer, pastoral lead at a Northamptonshire secondary school, who has worked with young people for more than ten years, said: “CAMHS have become actively and significantly worse since the first announcement of investment into children and young people’s mental health by government in 2013.

“We are now at a stage where a child needs to have lost their life before the seriousness of their mental health needs are recognised.

“People are being lied to. There is no transparency from government about the real state of mental health services for the young. You never, ever get help without a fight.

“Schools have become reliant on charities and community agencies to provide support to suicidal children”.

Ms Rughoobeer said she had worked with a 13-year-old boy who told her he planned to kill himself who was given just just three sessions of CBT before being referred back to his school.

Last year, she said a 13-year-old made two suicide attempts within two months, both of which required hospitalisation yet was told that the child did not meet their thresholds and intervention was not provided. And in 2017, a 15-year-old who was self-harming for up to nine months was consistently told she did not meet thresholds.

She was eventually she was put on a five-month waiting list for an initial screening before eventually being allocated one group therapy session.

One mother, who does not want to be identified, described how her son began showing signs of depression at the age of 11, after a series of family upheavals, which spiralled out of control and he ended up trying to take his own life two years later.

He was admitted to hospital was suspected liver failure and sectioned but it then took a further six months to get a CAMHS appointment. Her son, now 15, was taken into a room and assessed on his own then dismissed as it his case worker concluded he did not need further treatment.

His mother, from Hertfordshire, told the Telegraph: “If I had depression, it would be much easier for me, as an adult, to access medication and therapy than it is for children.

“If a child had a broken leg but was saying ‘I don’t have a broken leg’ medical services would involve parents. Why aren’t they doing this for me? My fifteen year old pretended he was fine – but CAMHS should be involving parents in the process, or at least offering support for parents to help them manage their children’s mental health problems.

She acknowledged that CAMHS workers were often “overworked, time poor and stressed” but added: “Our experiences have left us completely disillusioned with the system. My son isn’t interested in school, he isn’t fulfilling his potential. I live with a constant fear about what he will do”.