George welcomes increased funding to children’s and adolescents’ mental health services

Andrew George, MP for West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly,  yesterday warmly welcomed the Government’s announcement last week of further funding for childhood and adolescent mental health services but asked for reassurance that the situation where mentally ill children are placed in police cells due to a lack of specialised inpatient beds would not be repeated.

Mr George is a member of the powerful House of Commons Health Select Committee that issued a report on the problems of children’s and adolescents’ mental health services in November last year. The Report highlighted the lack of inpatient beds for children and adolescents with mental illnesses (Tier 4 services) in Cornwall and in turn precipitated the Government’s response to increased funding for mental health and for children and adolescents in particular.

Mr George said, “Tier 3 and Tier 4 services for young people suffering with mental health problems must have at least equal parity with physical health in the next Government. I am pleased that the Government has accepted that increasing funding to all mental health services is a priority and have shown this by boosting funds by £1.25billion as announced in The Budget last week. We need to now make sure that the benefit of this is seen through improved services for our young people with mental health problems in Cornwall.”