Stephen Fry has called for a network of mental health walk-in centres for children and young people who he said have been hit worst by the pandemic.

Writing in the Telegraph, the actor and comedian, who is also president of Mind, voiced the charity’s appeal to ministers for hubs through which children can access support without a referral from a doctor or their school.

A Mind survey of almost 12,000 people, including many with pre-existing mental health problems, has suggested that almost one in three young people self-harmed in 2020.

Fry, 61, said the walk-in centres would provide help for people aged 11 to 25, and reflected on his own youth as a time of “confused despair”.

He wrote in the Telegraph: “I’ve done my best to speak candidly about my own struggles with mental health – living with bipolar and navigating my way through several dark and troubling times, including a near fatal overdose.”

Fry added that although he has seen a reduction in the stigma about mental health, the pandemic has taken a “huge toll” on people’s mental wellbeing, and Mind’s research has shown that young people are “among the hardest hit”.

He added that children are not getting enough support from schools partly because mental health issues are often treated as “bad behaviour”.

“Better to accept our own moral responsibilities to the young and strive to understand and ameliorate this crisis,” he said. “For crisis it is.”

In February 2021 there were 305,802 young people in contact with mental health services in England compared with 237,088 children in March 2020, according to the Mental Health Network, which is part of the NHS Confederation.