NHS Fife Needs To Spend More On Youth Mental Health

Up to a fifth of young people may need help with their mental health in any one year, yet only 0.08% of NHS Fife's budget is spent on providing care for them.

There are calls today from a consortium of charities for more health spending on youth mental health services.

The Scottish Children's Services Coalition - which includes Falkland House School - says NHS Fife only spends 0.08% of its budget on children's mental health.

The Scottish average is 0.45%.

The coalition wants the spend to rise to 1% of the budget. It says just over £45.2m is currently spent on child and adolescent mental health in Scotland, amounting to a 5.56% of the mental health budget and 0.45% of the total NHS budget. Increasing the budget to £100.5m, an additional £55.3m, to match 1% of NHS expenditure, would mean that 12.3% of the mental health budget would be spent on child and adolescent mental health.

Estimates vary, but research suggests that 20% of children have a mental health problem in any given year, and about 10% at any one time. These include conditions such as depression, anxiety, suicide, OCD and self-harm.

Sophie Pilgrim, Director of Kindred Scotland, speaking on behalf of the SCSC, said: "As a coalition it is staggering to find that only 0.45% of the NHS Scotland budget is being spent on CAMHS, amounting to just over 5.5% of the total mental health budget. Yet we know that 1 in 5 children have a mental health condition in any given year and all the evidence points to the clear advantages of early intervention to tackle those suffering and the long-term cost to society of failing to do so.

"We would urge that the Scottish Government looks at radically rebalancing the NHS budget to ensure that we are increasing the proportion of spend on child and adolescent mental health services.

"The young people who require these services and indeed the families who support them are amongst the most vulnerable in our society and we must collectively look to ensure that they are given the support that they need. Demand for child and adolescent health services continues to increase and health board expenditure must be adapted in order to meet this need. If the situation is allowed to continue, not only will the consequences be costly in the long term, they will also have a devastating effect on the young people and families involved."