Children forced to travel hundreds of miles for NHS mental health treatment
Ive got a bit of a Children’s services theme going on this week. I suspect the issue described here is felt most acutely in rural areas. The story tells us:
Children and young people with serious mental health problems are receiving treatment as far as 285 miles away from their homes, despite a pledge to end such practice, because bed shortages in some areas are so severe.
Experts say sending highly troubled under-18s to units far from their family and friends can be frightening for them, reduces their chances of recovery and increases their risk of self-harm.
In all, 1,039 children and adolescents in England were admitted to a non-local bed in 2017-18, in many cases more than 100 miles from home, figures collated by NHS England show. Many had complex mental health problems that often involve a risk of self-harm or suicide, such as severe depression, eating disorders, psychosis and personality disorders.
Patients from Canterbury, in Kent, were sent 285 miles for inpatient mental health care, those from Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly 258 miles and those from Bristol 243 miles.
Bed shortages meant that in 119 of the NHS’s 195 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) at least one patient under-18 was sent out of the area for care last year, the statistics show.