How many will take their own lives today? And tomorrow? And…
The number of children in mental health crisis has reached record levels in England, analysis of NHS data by the mental health charity YoungMinds shows.
For the first time, urgent referrals of under-18s to mental health crisis teams reached more than 3,500 in May, three times higher than in May 2019. And in the year to March 2023 there were 21,555 urgent referrals to mental health crisis teams, up 46% on 2022, the charity found.
These are children with the most acute mental health symptoms, who might otherwise need to go to hospital for psychosis, severe self-harm or suicide attempts… More here.
This is an area my wife and I have battled the authorities with over the past 7 years and I can say for certain that the situation it worse today than it has ever been. It is literally at the point where NO help is available to a young person in crisis (child or young adult) no matter how close they are to suicide.
They can go to a mental health hub who will deem them in crisis which is then passed to a crisis team who may either offer some non-substantial solutions or tell them to go to A&E. The A&E will have, at best, one person available at end of hours waiting in a stressful environment they will still not get the care they need. Their GP will not be able to help or to prescribe suitable medication because the wait to get assessed to see what is actually wrong is effectively forever.
You can try the private route, as we have, but even at £200-400 per appointment it is still very hard to get the right help and the waits between appointments are also very long. If you had a spare £20,000 you could likely get the help you need, but for the rest of us they are simply left to potentially die by their own hand.
These are young people who with timely help could be paying taxes for 50 years and enjoying rich and fulfilled lives, but instead our current leaders are more intent of feeding the racist rhetoric that appeals to those old enough to have already had their long lives, and who are the only ones left who will vote for them without shame.