Health leaders welcome Future Minds roadmap

Rebecca Gray, mental health director, said:

"These findings show NHS mental health provision is at a tipping point when it comes to children who are struggling to access the support they need. 

"Anxiety in childhood often persists into adolescence and is linked to developing depression in later life. Early intervention can change the trajectory of children’s lives by preventing problems from becoming more serious.

"NHS leaders will welcome the Future Minds roadmap which proposes having Mental Health Support Teams and open access mental health support in every community, through Young Futures hubs. This would help fix the system by shifting from hospital to community and implementing prevention programmes to help increase capacity as demand for services rises.

"We also welcome the focus on reducing the number of young people sent out of their area for care, an important issue we have focussed on in our own work recently. However it is important to recognise that in practice sometimes young people will need highly specialised treatment, which is not possible to provide locally."