More than 500 children a day in England are being referred to NHS mental health services for anxiety, more than double the rate before the pandemic began. The Guardian has the story.
In 2023-24 there were 204,526 new referrals of patients aged 17 or under where the primary cause was anxiety, official figures show. In 2019-20, the year before COVID-19 struck, the total was 98,953. In 2016-17 it was 3,879.
The alarming increase means children are now being referred to NHS mental health services in England for anxiety at a rate of one every three minutes or almost 4,000 a week.
Doctors, NHS officials and health leaders said in interviews that the surge in anxiety referrals was “staggering” and “shocking” and laid bare an urgent need to tackle the crisis in children’s mental health.
Officials said the rise in demand for care was straining the capacity of the health service to provide timely treatment for anxiety, with thousands of children on “unacceptably long” waiting lists. Delays to treatment risked causing further harm at a crucial stage of their development, they said.
A Guardian investigation can also disclose that mental health leaders fear the figures may only be the tip of the iceberg because many children are not seeking help or are unable to do so, despite increasing awareness. …
Experts said the pandemic [i.e., lockdowns] had caused “significant disruption” to children’s lives and amplified all the other pressures they already faced. More than four years after Covid first hit, many children remain uncertain about the world around them and anxious about their future, the experts said.
Worth reading in full.
Notice that in Left-wing outlets it’s always the “pandemic” or “Covid” that’s to blame, never lockdowns – even though the virus didn’t closes any schools or confine the population to their homes. The Government did that. It wasn’t “the virus” that “disrupted” children’s lives. It was the extreme (and ineffective) response.
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