Children’s Commissioner for England. Children’s mental health services 2020-21 (February 2022)

Summary

This is the fifth annual report on children’s mental health services in England from the Children's Commissioner. The report aims to assess children’s ability to access Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services (CYPMHS) in England in 2020/21, and how this has changed over the past two years. Using new figures sourced from NHS Digital and NHS England, this report examines the following at both a national and local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) level:

• Spending on children’s mental health.
• Numbers of children referred to and accessing CYPMHS.
• Numbers of children referred that were not accepted into treatment during the 2019/20 financial year, as proxied by the numbers not receiving two contacts with CYPMHS.
• Average waiting times.

Content

Main findings

• Nationally, spending on specialist NHS mental health services for children has increased for the fourth consecutive year across the majority of CCGs.
• Half of CCGs spend at least 1% of their budget on CYPMHS.
• The number of children referred (for example by their GP or teacher) to NHS children’s mental health services has decreased for the first time in four years. In 2020/21, 497,502 children were referred, a decrease from 539,000 the previous year. This could be due to disruption caused by the pandemic. The percentage of children being referred nationally has also decreased. Referral rates have dropped from 4.5% to 4% of the under-18 population.
• More children have been struggling with their mental health since 2017 – which covers the pandemic period. One in six children have a probable mental health disorder. This is up from one in nine children with a probable mental health disorder in 2017. While progress has been made to reduce the treatment gap between those who need treatment and what is provided, this increase in need has made this more challenging.
• Overall, progress has been made across all indicators: on waiting times and a reduction in the number of children and the number of children able to access treatment.
• For those children who are accepted into mental health treatment services, average waiting times have decreased substantially from last year. The waiting times have decreased from 43 days in 2019/20 to 32 days in 2020/21.
• However, over a third (37%) of children accepted onto waiting lists are still waiting for their treatment to begin.