Paul Blomfield MP: Rise in young self-harmers in Sheffield shows need for mental health action
Hallam's exclusive showing a huge rise in young people self-harming in Sheffield underlines the need for more action from the government on mental health
Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield says the rise in young people self-harming in the city we revealed on Monday shows the government needs to invest more in mental health early intervention.
He's been telling Hallam he's concerned about a lack of funding backing up new government plans on mental health announced this week.
It comes after we exclusively revealed a 70% rise in the number of young people being referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Sheffield over the past 2 years.
Paul says it's worrying:
"What it shows is that this is the extreme manifestation of an increase in depression and anxiety and what it means is that if we can identify and intervene to support young people at early stages of mental health problems then they won't get to the more distressing extremes of self-harming.
"I'm really fed up with the government coming out with grand statements that turn out to be empty words. The problem that we have is that the health service is under-funded, within the NHS, mental health isn't getting its fair share and within mental health funding spending on young people is lower than it needs to be."
The Prime Minister announced new mental health plans earlier this week - she's said the government's going to introduce comprehensive reforms to improve mental health support at every stage of a person’s life, with an emphasis on early intervention for children and young people.
But Paul's accused the PM of being "cynical" by not backing it up with enough resources.
He says young people he's been speaking to are feeling the impact:
"A growing theme has been concern about access to mental health services and a growing number of young people reporting problems with mental health. It's a deeply distressing situation - for young people in particular an early intervention could make all the difference - and they're not getting it.
"Young people have been telling me they aren't accessing services. Head teachers in schools have been telling me they're having to dip into their budgets to buy in psychological services for students in crisis because they can't those services on the NHS."
The government say they're investing more in mental health than ever before, but they recognise there is more to do.