Call to keep focus on children’s care

The government has been urged to keep children’s mental health a priority after it was confirmed that funding for child and adolescent mental health services is to be frozen for the next two years.

The Camhs grant for 2006-7 and 2007-8 will remain at £90.5m after three successive years of increases.

Lee Miller, consultancy and training manager at charity YoungMinds, said the freeze was expected but  the gaps in children’s mental health services still needed to be filled.

He said a strong case for increased money must be made at next year’s comprehensive spending review, particularly because greater use of talking therapies to treat depression had not been properly planned for.

Miller also said the local authority element of Camhs funding would lose its ring-fence this year.