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Strategic health authorities and primary care trusts may be subject to judicial reviews if they fail to provide adequate services for children and adolescents with mental health problems, MPs were told last week.

Christine Daly, social policy adviser at the Children's Legal Centre, told MPs scrutinising the draft Mental Health Bill that the duty on service providers to work for the best interests of children, spelled out in the Children Act 2004, could leave those that failed open to judicial review.

Research by charity Youngminds has revealed that there are 260 young people, including some
who are victims of violence, on adult mental health wards because of a lack of suitable provision.

Nancy Kelly, principal policy officer at Barnardo's, urged the government to look again at the bill to ensure it complied with the act. "This bill was drafted long before the Children Act came in. There is a real need to look again at this in the light of the act," she said.

Kelly added that the draft Mental Health Bill should include the children's welfare checklist from the Children Act 1989, adding that such a move was "not desirable but necessary".

Earlier, adolescent psychiatrist Dr Patrick Byrne said it was "scandalous" that there were not enough beds for young people, particularly in north east and north west England.

Kelly also told the MPs that tribunal panels should include people who understood children's issues.

Child psychiatrist Brian Jacobs said the biggest area of confusion working in adult mental health services was dealing with social services in relation to children who ended up there. "The two systems [adult mental health and children's social services] do not mesh nicely, even today," he said.

The Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Social Services have also warned that neither the draft bill nor the 1989 or 2004 Children Acts focus sufficiently on the mental health needs of children and young people.