Does your child have a mental health issue that they need help with? NHS...the broken promise.

Does your child have a mental health issue that they need help with? NHS...the broken promise.

Theresa May has said

'the government should strengthen mental health training and continuing professional development for teachers to ensure they are properly equipped to recognize the early signs of mental illness in their pupils and have the confidence to be able to signpost or refer to the right support. Everyone of England's 3,600 secondary schools will be offered mental health 'first aid' training for teachers in the next two year'

I would like to point out Theresa May that the teaching profession is not in the best of health...there were 138,500 sick days taken by 31,900 staff within the education sector last year. 3.5% of school staff take a stress related absence every year averaging 26.9 working days.

78% of teachers have experienced work related anxiousness, 33% per health, 25% have increased their alcohol and tobacco use, 2% have self-harmed.

Moreover, they are leaving the profession in droves. 52 teachers a week are leaving teaching for good!

In short, they are over worked and under resourced with some teachers reporting they work more than 60 hours a week. Why should they be the ones trained to spot the signs of mental illness and know where to signpost.

It seems they have their plates piled high already. Maybe you could ring-fence some money to help the people who spend 35 hours of a possible 80 of their waking hours with our children, to help and support them in that very important role.

If teachers did spot the signs and knew where to signpost (in the majority of cases it is the Child and Adolescent Mental health services CAMHS) The strain on this service is extreme.

Recent research has revealed the pressure that CAMHS services are under: waiting times for assessments vary from a few weeks to more than a year, while around a quarter of children who are assessed are turned down for treatment, often on the grounds that their problem isn't 'serious enough'. In total, around three quarters of children and young people with mental health problems do not get the help they need.  

The reality is that unless your child has taken a serious attempt to end their life (and as a parent you have sat in an overcrowded A&E all night and then been assigned a mental health worker) or they are self-harming to the point that their physical health is seriously diminishing...Then your child's distress is not serious enough to meet the threshold for help.

Sorry just not distressed enough! Go away and manage, that is the take home message. Not because CAMHS don't want to help, but they CAN'T.

The government has invested an extra £1.4 billion until 2020, in order to 'transform' CAMHS in line with the 2015 future in mind report. CAHMS receives just 0.7% of NHS spending.

Theresa May has also promised instant 'digital-assisted therapy' as an alternative to waiting weeks for face to face appointments. I thought the idea was to lessen Children's use of digital interaction generally, but not it seems, if it saves the NHS some money. 

WHO comes up with these ideas?

Theresa recently acknowledged that teenage mental health services were patchy, but she denies there is a crisis in mental health.

It's more than patchy, it is at breaking point. They are letting down a generation of teenagers with far reaching consequences.

If you went to A&E tomorrow with an angina attack and they investigated and said 'no need for treatment, please can you go home and wait until it becomes a full blown heart attack and then we will do a triple heart bypass. You would shake your head in disbelief and insist something was done.

'Parity of esteem' is defined as valuing mental health equally with physical health...This is the government's ultimate broken promise.

http://telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11480108/stress-pushing-teachers-to-leave-profession-figures-show.html

http://youngminds.org.uk/media/1285/foi-2016-press-release.pdf