Comment: OCC report on CAMHS

Charlotte Ramsden, Chair of the ADCS Health, Care and Additional Needs Policy Committee, said:

“Poor mental health and wellbeing can have a lasting impact on a child’s life chances. Yet all too often children face difficulties in accessing services, wait months for support and reach crisis point as a result. The human and financial costs of this are huge and, crucially, this is not in children’s best interests. Our collective aim must be to ensure all children receive the right mental health support, in the right place, at the right time. This means investment in both specialist services for children and young people as well as services that support them earlier and prevent their needs from escalating.

“It is encouraging to see there have been some improvements in children’s mental health services in the past two years, but this does not mean job done. Overall, the quality of services across the country remains inconsistent. Clearly there is much more to do before we have a mental health system that works for all children and young people. Five years on from Future in Mind, now is an appropriate time to bring the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Taskforce together again to take stock and identify what still needs to be done to make the mental health and wellbeing system work for children. They cannot afford to wait a decade for a mental health system that puts them first.”

ENDS

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