Mental health funds for kids’ cut by £50m

The Government has “broken its promise” to prioritise children’s mental health by slashing funding by £50million a year.

NHS England revealed in a parliamentary answer yesterday that spending on services has dropped by more than 6% in real terms since 2010 to £717million.

Sarah Brennan, of charity YoungMinds, said: “Services have been chronically underfunded for decades. These are deeply worrying figures.”

Luciana Berger, Shadow Public Health Minister, said: “They prove the Government has broken its promise.”

Ministers said overall NHS spending had been protected but refused to deny funding for children had been dropped.

Mental Health Minister Norman Lamb said he wanted to “give children the best possible health care”.

“Our NHS is so precious, it’s heartbreaking to see its ethos being steadily destroyed”

The BBC expands on this issue on its website at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30735370