This new report published by the Education Policy Institute, commissioned by The Prudence Trust and in partnership with Youth Access, finds significant gaps in early mental health support for young people across England – and a rise in the number of young people reaching a crisis point.
The report finds that:
- There is substantial variation across the country in the range of mental health support services delivered outside of NHS settings available to young people. These services include open-access or drop-in mental health services, youth groups, and peer support.
- The range of available services does not appear to be related to the number of young people in an area, whether an area is urban or rural, or the level of deprivation.
- Whilst integrated care boards and partnerships bring together both local authorities and NHS trusts to plan effective provision, we find many instances of conflicting information in the responses we received, indicating varying levels of awareness of the service landscape.
- Targeted services for groups with barriers to accessing mental healthcare are particularly lacking: according to our data, half of areas did not have a targeted service for LGBTQ+ young people, and two thirds did not have any targeted service for young people from ethnic minority groups or for other under-served groups, including refugee and asylum-seekers or care-experienced young people.
- New data from NHS England shows that, between 2017 and 2023, the number of young people aged 11 to 25 admitted to hospital for mental health reasons increased by 20 per cent to about 150,000, whilst admission episodes rose by a third, indicating that more young people are reaching a crisis point and experiencing multiple episodes of admission for their mental health.
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