WHENEVER there is talk of a crisis in mental health services, it tends to focus on older people and the rise in dementia, but there is a crisis at the other end of life too. In any given year, one in five children and teenagers will have a mental health condition and yet the services available to support and treat them are falling short.
The shortfall has become obvious in a number of ways. First, hundreds of children and young people are being treated on unsuitable adult wards; many are also being sent to England for treatment, which can make it difficult for family to visit. And the waiting times for help are just as troubling. Earlier this year, it was revealed just over 100 children who began receiving specialist mental health care in the last three months of 2016 had waited more than a year to get help.
The lack of secure inpatient provision in Scotland has also exacerbated the situation. The most seriously ill teenagers – some as young as 14 – are being treated on adult psychiatric wards or paediatric wards where they may pose a danger to other patients. One Scottish youngster with a serious learning disability has been in a secure unit in England since 2010.
Worrying though the situation is, there is at least some good news. For a start, the Scottish Government has promised an extra £150million on mental health services over the next five years and we know that some of the money will be specifically targeted at bringing down the waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services.
As revealed in The Herald today, plans for a secure 12-bed unit in Irvine have also been drawn up by NHS Ayrshire and Arran and the Government says it supports the proposal in principle. Should the plan go ahead, it would be a significant step forward and would mean Scotland would have, for the first time, its own secure hospital for adolescents.
However, as it almost always does with the NHS, the issue comes back to money. The unit would cost £4.5m to build and almost £4m a year to run, but the Government has not committed to provide the money yet. The extra £150m is also welcome but, even if some of the funding is committed to services for teenagers, it will still fall short. In fact, the proportion of the NHS Scotland budget dedicated to young people suffering mental health difficulties is only around half a per cent.
The solution is for the Government to increase the proportion of the NHS budget dedicated to young people, although there may also have to be an increase in total funding too. A greater focus on prevention is also part of the answer because we know that early intervention can reduce the numbers of young people whose mental health deteriorates to a point where they require specialist psychiatric care.
In the end, the ultimate aim has to be to increase the number of young people leading healthy and well adjusted lives. The current state of mental health services means we are unlikely to achieve that aim any time soon.
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