Young people’s mental health services are in crisis – here’s how we fix them

According to the report, average CAMHS waiting lists in February rocketed by two-thirds in two years in England, meaning children are waiting on average 21 weeks for a first appointment

There was a time when the acronym CAMHS wouldn’t have meant much to many parents. Most mums and dads would have stared at you blankly if you asked them to spell it out.

Sadly, that is no longer the case. These days a vast majority of parents and carers would, if you asked them, tell you what CAMHS does (or, at least, what it is supposed to do), and a good number would spell it out: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

It is the branch of the NHS, often organised along local authority lines, that is supposed to assess and treat any young people with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties.

Any child or young person with depression, problems with food and eating, self-harm, abuse, violence or anger, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or anxiety is supposed to receive treatment from CAMHS.

These local services are supposed to be made up of teams of nurses, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, support workers and social workers.

The observant among you will notice the use of the word “supposed” in those last four sentences, because, in large sections of the country, that is not what is happening. Not really. Not at a scale that is working; at a scale which provides the cover that our pandemic and social media-triggered crisis in youth mental health demands. Thanks to years and years of cuts, these services have been reduced almost to nothing – to the extent that in some places they pretty much don’t exist.

For a long time now, I have run focus groups with parents about all aspects of their children’s lives. During that time, I have heard shocking stories of mums and dads who simply can’t secure the support they need for their kids. I’m talking about harrowing tales of kids who are experiencing suicidal thoughts, with diagnosed psychiatric problems, who are simply not receiving any treatments. None.

It is not an exaggeration to say that, as a father, these stories sometimes haunt my dreams.

In the course of these conversations, on the occasions that I am able to step back and think about the big picture, I have been struck by the fact that a very significant percentage of these parents and carers actually know someone who is being let down by the system. Be they about their friend’s kids or their kid’s friends, the anecdotes come thick and fast.

And that’s why I now think this is a bone fide electoral issue. Labour politicians should be making very, very regular comments about the degradation of CAMHS: after all, they are surely hearing on the doorstep the same stories I hear in my focus groups.

If they won’t listen to the stories they are told when they go canvassing, then perhaps they should read the results of an outstanding bit of Freedom of Information journalism from the team at The House magazine last week.

Their investigation uncovered a postcode lottery in child and adolescent mental health care, with some desperate young people waiting up to four years for help. Four years!

According to the report, average CAMHS waiting lists in February rocketed by two-thirds in two years in England, meaning children are waiting on average 21 weeks for a first appointment. That figure drops to just three weeks in Labour-run Wales.

If the mums and dads I speak to knew of that comparison, they would be absolutely infuriated.

To be fair to Keir Starmer, he did make a commitment in his 2021 Labour conference speech to put a youth mental health drop-in centre in every community. This is a good idea, for sure.

But if I were the Labour leader, or his shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, I would go further: I would mention CAMHS a lot – I would bang on and on and on about it – and I would commit significant funding to rebuilding it as soon as possible after an election. It is the right thing to do – and there are votes to be won.

CAMHS is in crisis. The voters know it.