The NHS Alliance comments on RCN mental health findings

Responding to the story from the Royal College of Nursing on very long waits for children in a mental health crisis in A&E, the director of The NHS Alliance's Mental Health Network, Rebecca Gray, said:

"There has been a huge increase in mental illness in children and young people.

"Mental health services are adopting new approaches and delivering real progress, but the scale of the challenge means that too often, young people with mental illness end up going to hospital emergency departments, and then facing very long waits in an inappropriate, or even harmful, setting.

"That is bad for patients and for staff.

"Too much of our energy and stretched resources are spent on dealing with crisis when we want to be focused on earlier intervention and prevention. It’s also about ensuring there is effective social care provision so there are enough suitable placements.

"There is so much potential to develop and build on change already under way – reducing waits for child and adolescent mental health services, and implementing new technologies and genomics. 

"We have called on the government to introduce a new NHS mental health performance target for children and young people to help address an unacceptable treatment gap for people with mental ill health who can’t access care."