The British Parliament's Health Select Commitee has issued a damning report on the alarming failings in children’s mental health services

You can read the report online here and download a PDF of the 179 page report as well.

As reported in the Mirror:

Thousands of mentally unwell children are being failed because of “serious and deeply ingrained problems” in the provision of care, MPs warn today.

In a damning 117-page report, the Health Select Committee lays bare the alarming failings in children’s mental health services.

The official House of Commons probe was prompted in part by a series of campaigning articles in the Mirror, which submitted evidence to the committee’s inquiry.

Its report warns how “in many areas early intervention services are being cut or are suffering from insecure or short term funding”.

[...]

Earlier this year the Mirror uncovered how 4,391 children aged 10 or under had received treatment for stress, anxiety or depression since 2009 at two of the biggest NHS mental health trusts.

But Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston said it was a “disgrace” that data had not been collected centrally for over a decade.

She highlighted how the cost of a child’s in-patient bed in a mental health ward costs £25,000 a month. If that sort of cash had been spent on early schemes such as drop-in services it could have helped avoid the need for dozens of children to be admitted to hospital, she said.

While it is praise worthy that they want to do something for the children, they seem to be overlooking the inherent failure of psychiatry itself. No wonder the system is in such deplorable condition.