Youth mental health services will get overhaul and £1.25bn over five years

Mental health services for children and young people in England need a “complete overhaul,” says a review that found the current system complex and fragmented with too many young people falling through the net.

The Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Taskforce was appointed by the government last year to review services in England after a broad consensus that services were not fit for purpose. The taskforce described a complicated structure of services, where multiple bodies planned and contracted services and a lack of clarity existed over who was responsible for which services.1

The result was that children and young people were shunted between services and often fell between gaps in service provision with no accountability for outcomes. The report also noted many reports of insufficient inpatient beds, leading to children being sent to …