Mental health services for children are struggling to cope with an “exponential growth in demand” since the pandemic, NHS bosses have admitted.
There are concerns the volume of children being referred for treatment could be “just the tip of the iceberg”.
A meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s young people’s scrutiny committee was told despite increased mental health provision for children across England’s largest county, NHS waiting lists were soaring with the majority of children waiting for three months to be seen.
The extent of the issue in North Yorkshire has been exposed less than a week after a national Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation study reveal the impact of Covid-19 had led to an unprecedented increase in demand for mental health services for children.
It warned a generation of children are at risk of being left behind because of a combination of soaring waiting times for services and the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on their mental health.
Rising waiting times, including for urgent cases, have come despite the Government’s response including £79m nationally to accelerate previous plans to improve children’s wellbeing and mental healthcare provision in education and healthcare settings, as well as other initiatives.
Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust bosses told the scrutiny meeting its community-based mental health team was now treating more than 2,500 children across the county, and referrals to its services had risen from about 100 a month at start of pandemic to more than 300 a month during 2021.
NHS and council health bosses emphasised the children’s mental health system was under great strain, exacerbated due to difficulties recruiting and retaining staff and increasing numbers of complex cases.
A North Yorkshire NHS clinical commissioning group spokeswoman said while demand for children’s mental health services had been rising for many years, since the pandemic there had been an “exponential increase”.
The meeting heard there had been a particular spike in the number of youngsters needing help for eating disorders.
Councillors were told just one in four of children found to need “urgent” help for eating disorders were being seen within the one week national standard. In addition, the county’s Compass Phoenix integrated mental health and wellbeing service for children had seen its waiting times almost double to 39 days since being launched in September.
The meeting heard a survey of secondary pupils across the county had found 35 per cent said they had regularly made themselves sick, went on extreme diets or had undertaken an unusual amount of exercise to lose weight.
Councillors said they feared as children, and in particular pre-school age ones and teenagers, had not had the normal chances to develop social skills during the pandemic, the impact on their mental health could be in the years to come.
In response, a boss for the NHS trust said it was forecasting an increase in demand for children’s mental health services over the next five years, but declined to reveal the extent of the expected rise.
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