London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Evidence of UK’s child mental health crisis is stark and compelling

Evidence of UK’s child mental health crisis is stark and compelling

Analysis: addressing the sobering reality is a challenge for ministers, the NHS and society as a whole
Britain’s children are becoming unhappier, more anxious, more depressed, and more likely to self-harm, suffer from an eating disorder or have suicidal thoughts. Addressing that sobering reality is a challenge not only for the government and the NHS but for society as a whole. Evidence for the ongoing deterioration in youth wellbeing is detailed, considerable and overwhelming.

The Children’s Society has found that happiness levels among children and young people have declined to the extent that 7% of 10- to 15-year-olds in the UK are unhappy with their lives. They identify school, appearance and friends as the main drivers of their discontent. Experts also cite other reasons for the fact that growing numbers of school-age children are unhappy – bullying, problems at home, sexual assault and damage inflicted by social media to name but a few.

Concern about the phenomenon had been growing for years before Covid struck in March 2020, and the pandemic has made a bad situation an awful lot worse. NHS Digital’s most recent survey of the mental heath of children and young people in England, published last September and based on data collected in February and March 2021, provided stark evidence of the sharp downturn. There were 534,000 under-18s in touch with services before the pandemic, a figure that has risen to 650,000.

Rates of probable mental disorders among six- to 16-year-olds increased from 11.6%, or one in nine, in 2017 to 17.4%, or one in six, the health service’s statistical research agency found. Among the same age group, 39.2% experienced a downturn in their mental health while only 21.8% reported an improvement. Among 17- to 23-year-olds the picture was even more pronounced: 52.5% said their mental health had declined and only 15.2% that it had improved. The proportion with possible eating problems had also risen in both age groups.

About 1.5 million under-18s will need new or extra help with their mental health as a direct result of Covid, according to the Centre for Mental Health thinktank. The record 420,314 young people being treated every month by NHS services are likely to be part of the total, but even if they all are that still leaves almost 1.1 million more yet to seek help.

Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), however, are already unable to help all those seeking care. Many would-be patients are rejected for not being ill enough despite their distress, vulnerability and worrying behaviour – backdoor rationing to try to reduce the huge pressure on the system. Delays of as long as 81 days await those who are deemed eligible. Given the lack of capacity, what chance does this Covid-induced wave of new cases have of getting the treatment they need?

There are some hopeful signs. The money going into children’s mental heath services is rising. NHS England is making good progress in using new support teams to provide help in schools and colleges with problems such as anxiety and depression. Claire Murdoch, the NHS’s national mental health director, is passionately committed to improving the situation.

The Commons health select committee noted last December that “the number of young people receiving treatment has risen from just 25% to around 40% of those with a diagnosable condition pre-pandemic”. But, the MPs added, “it is not acceptable that more than half of young people do not receive the mental health support they need” – a damning observation.

The NHS is increasingly characterised by care gaps – the mismatch between needs and its ability to meet them quickly – as illustrated by the long waits for elective surgery, GP appointments, A&E treatment and ambulances to arrive. CAMHS is another case in point.

It is hampered in its ability to offer fast, high-quality and appropriate care to all who need it by its longstanding lack of everything needed to run a responsive service: staff, community-based teams to keep people out of hospital and beds for those ill enough to need a spell as an inpatient.

Given that, and Covid’s devastating impact on our collective mental health, it would be naive to expect the NHS to be able to treat the pandemic’s many young casualties any better and any more quickly than it can now.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
×