Infant Mental Health Awareness Week

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the Opposition with you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. I thank the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) for securing this extremely important debate for Infant Mental Health Awareness Week, and all hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions this afternoon.

I know I say this sometimes in Westminster Hall debates, but there really are some debates that unite us all. Infant mental health is one such issue. I am delighted to say that I have learned a lot and am filled with the powerful advocacy that has come out of every single wonderful contribution today. It is good to know that there are such powerful advocates in this room. I thank the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire for all the work that she has done in this space.

We are all here today because we recognise that adverse childhood experiences are the key driver of mental illness in later life. We have many experts in the room today. The last two years have shone a light on the problem. The pandemic has hit the poorest and the most vulnerable children the hardest, highlighting the inequalities in our society that are very hard to escape—children with chaotic home lives; children in overcrowded, noisy housing; and children from black and ethnic minority communities who suffer disproportionately from worse outcomes and worse mental health provision than white communities.

In 2018 it was estimated that 50,000 children aged zero to five lived in homes where domestic violence, adult drug or alcohol dependency and adult mental illness were all present. Children and adults living in households in the lowest 20% income bracket are two to three times more likely to develop mental health problems than those in the highest.

There was already a crisis in child and adolescent mental health provision in this country, even before the pandemic, and the virus has undoubtedly made it worse. The latest report by the Children’s Commissioner shows that demand for child and adolescent mental health services increased, with one in six children suffering from a probable mental health condition, up from one in nine in just 2017—that is one in six. Yet only a third of children were able to actually access treatment, and 42% of child and adolescent mental health services in England do not accept referrals for children aged two and under.

Why should someone’s ability to access preventative services or treatment be determined by where they live? Poor mental health in childhood is carried into adulthood. As we have heard many times, what happens today will impact on demand for mental health services tomorrow. As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure. That is why we have a range of public health measures in place for children—check-ups for eyesight, hearing and growth; vaccinations to protect against measles, mumps, and rubella. Yet we ignore the wisdom of the ages when it comes to children’s mental health.

Improving infant mental health is all about prevention. With early intervention in those critical 1,001 days, families and infants can be supported. As a doctor, I know that adverse childhood experiences are a key contributing factor to poor mental health in adulthood. In A&E, I see increasingly younger children coming in who have self-harmed or who are living with eating disorders. It is simply heartbreaking. For parents, it is absolutely agonizing.

It should be a badge of shame for the Government that three quarters of children were not seen within four weeks of being referred to children’s mental health services. Imagine being a mum or dad whose child is self-harming or presenting with symptoms of depression, anxiety or phobias, and being without special support for more than a month.

There has been a 77% rise in the number of children needing specialist treatment for a severe mental health crisis between April 2021 and October 2021 compared with the same period in 2019. According to the latest report from the Children’s Commissioner, waiting times depend on where someone lives. When they eventually are seen, services may be hundreds of miles away.

I invite the Minister to please tell the House what new measures the Government are taking in relation to infants and their parents—I am looking for new measures. What new money is being allocated to child and adolescent mental health services, and where is it going? How many new mental health staff will be recruited? Are there plans for specialised parent-infant relationship teams for the infants most at risk? How will they tackle mental health inequalities along the lines of place, race, class and income? With respect, in every mental health debate we hear about the £2.3 billion allocated to mental health, but it seems to get spent five to 10 times over. I would like specific answers to my specific questions.

The Labour Government are committed to improving infant and child mental health. We will guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it, ensuring that patients start receiving appropriate treatment—not simply an initial assessment of needs—within a month of referral. We will recruit 8,500 new staff so that 1 million additional people can access treatment every year by the end of Labour’s first term in office, and we will provide specialist mental health support in every school and put an open-access mental health hub for children and young people in every single community, ensuring that every child has somewhere safe and secure to talk about their mental health.

As it stands, our children are being failed on prevention, on access to treatment and on funding, and we are failing to support their families. The system is stretched to breaking point. The staff are exhausted, the children are suffering, and parents do not know where to turn. I plead with the Minister today to take action before it is too late for another generation of children.