Time to act on children’s care

Sir, – As a coalition we warmly welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Jeane Freeman, to her new role. It was pleasing to see one of her first actions being to recognise as “completely unacceptable” the fact that one in five children and young people seeking mental health treatment are having this rejected.

For some time we have expressed our concerns over the increased demand on child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

This leaves many thousands of vulnerable children and young people in limbo and it is pleasing to see the Cabinet Secretary fully accepting the 29 recommendations outlined in the recent report on these so-called “rejected referrals”.

It is clear from the report that for many of these young people their needs are not severe enough to warrant CAMHS, but in these circumstances they must be provided with appropriate alternative support. More disturbingly, it is appears that some clearly require treatment but this is being rejected, often without any face-to-face meeting with a specialist. This situation is wholly unacceptable.

We have been arguing for some time that there should be nationwide provision of schools based services, and it is good to see this report recommend just that.

Investing a fraction of the mental health budget on school-based counselling services helps to keep children in school and avoid an unnecessary and often stigmatising mental health diagnoses, as well as reducing the burden on already stretched and costly CAMHS provision.

What is required now is prompt action, and we look forward to working with Ms Freeman on delivering this.

The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition. Queen Street, Edinburgh.