Scandal of mentally ill children dumped on the wrong hospital wards

Thousands of children in mental health crisis are being treated on inappropriate general wards – with some forced to stay for more than a year and staff not properly trained to care for them, shocking new data reveals.

New figures uncovered by The Independent show at least 2,838 children needing mental health care were admitted to non-psychiatric hospitals last year as the NHS battled with a lack of specialist staff and a surge in patients.

Children with eating disorders – who often need to be restrained to be fed through tubes – are among those being routinely put on general wards. It means staff without any specialist training, including security guards, are sometimes left to restrain these young patients.

One trust chief nurse told The Independent that porters had to be trained to restrain children on paediatric wards, causing trauma for both patients and staff.

Dr Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said she was “deeply concerned” about the situation.

“We now find ourselves in a situation where children and young people who have an eating disorder or mental ill health, and who may be on long waiting lists for treatment, are increasingly ending up in emergency settings and then being treated on general paediatric wards. This simply isn’t good enough,” she said.

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Source: The Independent, 1 May 2023