Huge rise in Manchester students seeking mental health counselling

This morning - we can reveal there's been a massive rise in the number of students in Manchester coming forward for mental health counselling.

We’ve managed to get hold of exclusive figures which show more than 2,200 students at the University of Manchester asked for since the start of 2018.

It's as 16 students are known to have died by suicide in the last 5 years.

Piers Wilkinson’s from the National Union of Students - he told us students in crisis are not being seen quickly enough;

"The way in which universities in the UK have been cutting the budgets of already underfunded student mental health services...

"Wait times are going up - you're looking at seven weeks, eight weeks or even higher.

"So students are told - well why don't you go to your GP? But at the same time the NHS has been slashed!

"So they tell you they can refer you to the university system."

The NUS is blaming rising tuition fees, high student rent and cuts to services for the crisis - Piers says the figures are tragic:

"It's incredibly worrying, but I can't say, having volunteered with the NUS for a while, that I'm surprised.

"We've been saying that there are consequences to the amount of stress students are under - this is the outcome of it.

"It's incredibly upsetting that their only way out, they feel, is to take their life."