The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC), an alliance of leading providers of specialist care and education to vulnerable children and young people, is calling on the Scottish Government to deliver a budget for mental health tomorrow (4th December).
The call comes as the latest waiting time figures from Public Health Scotland published today (3rd December), indicate that 115 children and young people had been waiting over a year for treatment from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the quarter ending September 2024.1
The figures also show that a total of 4,231 children and young people were still stuck on waiting lists to start treatment at the end of that quarter.
This comes against the background of an increasing level of violent incidents in the classroom, a result in part due to the current mental health emergency, exacerbated by the long shadow of the Covid lockdown and cost-of-living crisis.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, cases of poor mental health in children and young people were at unprecedented levels, with under-resourced services struggling to keep pace with growing demand, leaving an increasing number of vulnerable individuals unable to access support.
However, it should be noted that despite this challenging situation, only 0.75 per cent of the total NHS budget was spent on CAMHS in the 2023/23 financial year. Indeed, NHS spend on mental health services overall has alarmingly declined by 4.5 per cent in real terms over the last three years.
The SCSC is calling the Scottish Government to up its game in the budget and make the treatment of mental health issues a key national priority, prioritising spending and avoiding a potential lost generation of children and young people with mental health problems.
A spokesperson for the SCSC commented:
“The latest figures highlighting that more than 4,200 children and young people are still waiting for treatment from mental health services, with 115 waiting over a year, is extremely alarming.
“We are facing a mental health emergency and many of our children and young people are at breaking point, with stress and anxiety reaching alarming levels as they battle with the long shadow of lockdown and the rising cost of living. This is also having a major effect on classroom behaviour, impacting the young people concerned, their fellow pupils and staff.
“Each one of these statistics is an individual, and we would urge the Scottish Government to up its game and make the adequate resourcing of mental health services for our children and young people an absolute priority in the forthcoming budget.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
About the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition
The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC) is an alliance of leading providers of specialist care and education to vulnerable children and young people, as well as support to their families or carers.
It seeks to improve the lives of these children and young people, and its vision is to make Scotland the best place in the world for them to grow up in.
The SCSC aims to achieve this through campaigning to improve support for these vulnerable individuals. This seeks to ensure that a wide range of high-quality, well-resourced and easily accessible services is provided. Tailored to individual needs this will help them to achieve their full potential.
Members of the SCSC are:
Further information about the SCSC can be found at www.thescsc.org.uk.
