Children’s Mental Health

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

Here on the Opposition Benches we often refer to a crisis—the cost of living crisis, the fuel crisis and the poverty crisis—but the dire lack of children’s mental health services is exactly that. I need a stronger word to describe the absolute gaping void where even the most basic help, support and accessible services should be. As mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), I learned last week of a constituent whose 13-year-old daughter was sent from Whitstable to Manchester. Surely there can be nothing on earth more stressful or soul-destroying than being unable to get urgent help for your child when they are suffering.

In debates such as this, our respective parties will send around statistics. The ones that we received today say that three quarters of children are not seen within four weeks of being referred to children’s mental health services. As bad as that sounds, the reality is so much worse. In the almost five years that I have been holding regular surgeries I have seen case after case where parents are beyond desperate. They arrive, often a mum and a grandma, sometimes with the child in tow, with that all-too-familiar huge black folder rammed full of copies of emails, statements or education and health care plan paperwork, and report after report that makes it blatantly obvious that urgent help is needed immediately. I see parents crying in my office or over Zoom every single week without fail. Their health is affected as well. The stress and anxiety that those parents experience is off the scale. In some cases the young person has missed school for months, had problems for years, is self-harming or feeling suicidal. Parents have to leave their work and become full-time carers and campaigners just to secure an appointment for an initial assessment.

The Labour party has announced today that we want all children to be seen within four weeks, but that would be a miracle for most of the children and families that contact my office. When we first started taking on those cases, we were frustrated and upset to meet people who had been waiting for, on average, around 18 months. It then grew to two years. A few weeks ago, I met a desperate mother who had been waiting for help for her child for four years.

This is a huge crisis. The nation’s children and young people are being failed. What can we do? Is simply signing a bigger cheque the solution? We need to look at the systemic problems and the solutions we can get from health professionals. We have some brilliant professionals in Canterbury, but they are desperate and they need help. Surely we need to look urgently at the structure and provision and the lack of uniformity across the UK.

We must restore preventive mental health services in schools, hubs and communities, with professionals available to offer proper support to the currently more than 100 complex long-term cases I have. Many other MPs are desperate for help as well. I do not want to see any more parents crying in my surgery. Please let us get them some support before it is too late.