Improving children and young people’s mental health services: Local data insights from England, Scotland and Wales

Across the UK, the number of children and young people experiencing mental health problems is growing.

Mental health services are expanding, but not fast enough to meet rising needs, leaving many children and young people with limited or no support. Too little is known about who receives care and crucially, who doesn’t.

This briefing presents analysis from the Health Foundation’s Networked Data Lab (NDL) about children and young people’s mental health. The analysis from local teams across England, Scotland and Wales has highlighted three key areas for urgent investigation, to help ensure children and young people get the care they need. These are:
rapid increases in mental health prescribing and support provided by GPs
the prevalence of mental health problems among adolescent girls and young women
stark socioeconomic inequalities across the UK.
To inform national policy decisions and local service planning and delivery, the quality of data collection, analysis and the linkage of datasets across services and sectors need to be improved and used more effectively.