The Observer reports today that a leaked report shows that the NHS is ‘failing our children’ through a lack of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAHMS). And how.

One quarter of the country does not have crisis teams for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. That is beyond belief. If the report was that we didn’t have ambulances to pick up children in 25% of the country, nobody would accept it, because we know children would die. Newsflash: The lack of crisis teams means children are dying.

Imagine for a second that, god forbid, your child is standing on your roof and threatening to jump and kill himself. Who do you call? In 25% of the country, there’s no-one to help. Imagine your teenager suddenly has horrific hallucinations of millions of spiders coming to kill him. In 25% of the country, there’s no-one to help. Both of these children might kill themselves, because in 25% of the country, there’s no-one to help - and all because we’re pulling funding from such services to serve the less common but more palatable diseases like cancer.

We’re awful at providing mental health services in general, because we don’t like to talk about them. We like to imagine that the ‘crazy’ people are locked up, and brand every criminal going as having some mental health problem - usually schizophrenia - because we can’t accept that some people are just evil. Poor mental health and criminality become inextricably linked, and who wants to spend money helping criminals?

This is an utterly ludicrous situation. 9 million people in this country - one in six - has a mental health disorder right now. More than 1 in 3 of us will have a mental health disorder at some point - more than will experience cancer. Yet we’re cutting the amount spent on mental health services. Where’s the logic?

The situation is worse for children, because as repulsive as society finds the idea of an adult with mental illness, the idea of a child with it is far worse. When was the last time some do-good charity collecter asked you for money for children with cancer? And when the last time they asked you for money for children with serious mental health problems requiring treatment? The latter is 56 times more common. Yet in some parts of the country, there are no Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services at all.

We need to get over ourselves and face these issues, otherwise our own children will continue to suffer. And there’s a pretty huge chance it will be yours next.

Interact with this post

Your Comments and Responses

This post has been referenced by another on this site:
sjhoward.co.uk » Jamie Oliver: Get Dead

[...] Did you know, for example, that five times more people commit suicide in the UK than die in Road Traffic Accidents? And doesn’t that make you think that something, somewhere, is wrong with funding in this country? If you need a reminder of the current state of mental health funding in this country, look here. [...]

» This pingback was received at 14:15 on 28 December 06

This post has been referenced by another on this site:
sjhoward.co.uk » Reform of the Mental Health Act

[...] Our children dying because of our embarrassmentThe Independent continues it’s electoral reform rantElectoral reform - or the lack of itI become front-page newsJamie Oliver: Get Dead Recent Posts [...]

» This pingback was received at 07:46 on 14 March 07

This post has been referenced by another on this site:
sjhoward.co.uk » Embarrassment about mental health costs lives

[...] of the Mental Health ActOur children dying because of our embarrassmentPatientLine CostsJamie Oliver: Get DeadHospital parking “a mess”? Tell me about [...]

» This pingback was received at 09:01 on 16 July 07

This post has been referenced by another on this site:
sjhoward.co.uk » Johnson’s crazy screening plan

[...] will divert a vast amount of money from parts of the NHS which desperately need it - particularly those parts which have a less ’sexy’, populist [...]

» This pingback was received at 00:42 on 02 April 08

Write a new comment or response