Suicidal children have to ‘make several attempts’ before accessing NHS mental health services

Children feel they have to attempt suicide multiple times before they get treatment from NHS mental health services, the former children’s commissioner has warned.

Anne Longfield said that schoolchildren were aware that NHS mental health infrastructure was “buckling and far from being able to cope with the demand”.

She told the Times Health Commission: “When I first became children’s commissioner in 2015, the thing that children talked about most often was mental health. They said they knew they couldn’t get help and treatment easily, because there just wasn’t enough help to go around.

“Some said, we know that we’ve almost got to try and take our own life before we can get help. And I thought that was pretty shocking at the time. Now, young people are saying not only do they have to try to take their own life, they have to try and take their own life several times, and they say there will be an assessment of levels of intent within that.”

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Source: The Times, 1 November 2023