Children at risk of suicide are being refused places on waiting lists for mental health services because they are so chronically oversubscribed, according to leading education figures. A report last month by the Centre for Young Lives and the Child of the North multi-university research programme warned that the NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) are buckling under the strain of a “national epidemic” of children’s mental health problems. It revealed that, at the end of last year, 32,000 children had been waiting more than two years to be seen.
Two-thirds of children were not directed to any form of interim support, it said, with self-harm and suicide while they waited “too familiar”. Anne Longfield , founder of the Centre for Young Lives, told the Observer that when she took office as the government’s children’s commissioner in 2015, she was “shocked” to discover a young person had to be suicidal to be guaranteed a Camhs appointment. Now, she said, after years of further funding cuts, thresholds for intervention are so high that even suicidal children are frequently turned away in many areas.
Longfield said: “Now trying to kill yourself is not enough to get mental health support. They ask: ‘Did the child really intend to end their life or not?’ That is such a chilling state to be in. For any family, having a suicidal child is the most terrifying crisis.
Often they hit this terrible brick wall where they can’t get professional hel.