More young people than ever are seeking help for their mental health, with NHS support becoming ever-harder to access, a charity has warned.
An analysis by Mind of NHS statistics has concluded that record numbers of young people are now seeking help with their mental health.
The latest data for referrals to Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) showed they hit 507,738 by the end of December 2023, an all-time high.
Further NHS data has shown that the cost-of-living crisis is disproportionately affecting young people with mental health problems.
With prices rising over the past two years, more than half of young people with mental health problems (57%) are now from families where at least one parent is struggling to keep up with money, it warned.
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One in six young people with a mental health problem (15.3%) now live in households that cannot afford to buy enough food or have to use a foodbank, compared with only 3.5% of young people without a mental health problem, Mind said.
More than a quarter of those aged eight to 16 years with a mental health problem (26.8%) have a parent who cannot afford for their child to take part in activities outside school or college, compared to one in ten (10.3%) without, it added.
Nil Guzelgun, policy and campaigns manager at Mind, said: “The growing number of young people seeking support for their mental health was already a concerning trend before the pandemic, but the increase since 2020 demonstrates just how impactful traumatic events like a global pandemic and a brutal cost-of-living crisis have been for young people’s mental health.”
Separately, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has also highlighted the significant rise in the number of children and young people under 18 needing emergency care from CAMHS.
In just four years, psychiatrists and their teams have seen a 53% increase in the number of children in mental health crisis, who need emergency support, it said.
This includes young people who are suicidal, severely depressed and who have an eating disorder. There were 32,521 referrals to CAMHS crisis teams in 2022/23, compared to around 21,242 in 2019/20.
Dr Elaine Lockhart, chair of the college’s Child and Adolescent Faculty, said: “It’s unacceptable that so many children and young people are reaching crisis point before they are able to access care. We cannot allow this to become the new norm.”
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