Government announces £1.25 billion package of additional investment in Children and Young People’s Mental Health

The CAMHS Taskforce report, Future in Mind, has set out a blue print for what needs to change and some of this work will require additional funding.

The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition welcomes the £1.25 billion package of additional investment announced in the Budget on 18th March 2015 :

• Over £1 billion over the next 5 years to start new access standards which will see over 110,000 more children cared for over the next Parliament
• £118 million by 2018- 19 to complete the roll-out of the Children and Young People’s Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP IAPT) programme, ensuring that there are talking therapists in every part of the country providing the best quality treatment for children
• An additional £75 million over the next 5 years to give the right care to more women who experience mental ill health during the perinatal or antenatal period
• The Department for Education will also provide an additional £1.5 million towards piloting joint training for designated leads in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and schools to improve access to mental health services for children and young people, including the most vulnerable

Whilst this funding is very welcome, it should be seen in the light of evidence of disinvestment in and cuts to children and young people’s mental health services over the last few years. So this money may only bring us back to where we were before the cuts, and it probably will not cover all of the proposals in Future in Mind.

Local authorities have taken huge cuts to their budgets which have resulted in cuts to their CAMHS budgets . The amount spent on children and young people’s mental health by the NHS decreased by about 5% between 2008/9 and 2012/13 and on top of that there was a huge restructuring of public services. This has resulted in children and young people’s mental health services being described as a national scandal, where waiting lists have increased, children and young people who need an inpatient bed being placed miles from home, or inappropriately placed on adult or paediatric wards, and young people who are experiencing a mental health crisis are being placed in prison cells .

The CAMHS Taskforce report and this funding is just the start. The next Government needs to commit to implementing Future in Mind; they must not go back on this investment and ensure that it is spent on children and young people’s mental health services. We therefore very much look forward to having early dialogue with the next government.

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