The Government’s Green Paper on mental health: failing a generation

Half of all mental health conditions first occur by the age of 14, and three quarters by the time someone is 24. The most recent available data from ‘Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain, 2004’ find that one in ten children are living with some form of diagnosable mental health condition. Mental health issues often persist into adulthood, leading to individual harm and wider societal costs. Effective prevention and early intervention helps to reduce both and it is essential that the Government ensures that all children and young people who need it have timely access to quality care. We welcome the publication of the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care’s Green Paper on Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision which outlines proposals to improve the timeliness and quality of care.

The Government’s Green Paper outlines a ‘three pillar’ strategy: a Designated Senior Lead for Mental Health in every school and college, new Mental Health Support Teams linked to groups of schools and colleges, and trials of a four-week waiting time for access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). It also provides information about the ongoing work to improve mental health provision, and several supplementary proposals. Two of the three pillars will be tested and evaluated in different trailblazer areas; the Green Paper suggests that the trailblazer approach will reach between a fifth to a quarter of the country by 2022/23

This inquiry builds upon work done by the Education and Health Committees in previous Parliaments, including the joint inquiry into Children and young people’s mental health—the role of education