<\/p>\n
Children and young people experiencing a mental health crisis in England spend up to three days in A&E wards before being placed in specialist beds, NHS figures have revealed.<\/p>\n
A children’s nurse who works in an emergency department said it was “frankly barbaric” to wait this long for patients under the age of 18 in acute distress, but “it’s becoming much more normal”.<\/p>\n
Some patients who end up in A&E become so troubled and disorganized that staff are increasingly using sedatives to manage their behavior.<\/p>\n
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the delays highlighted a “catastrophic system-wide failure” of NHS mental health services, which intervened to stop school-aged children from falling into crisis. It said seeking help from A&E was often “damaging and potentially traumatic” for them.<\/p>\n
A freedom of information request by the RCN to NHS trusts in England also revealed that the number of under-18s experiencing a mental health crisis and having to wait at least 12 hours to be admitted to a mental health unit more than tripled, from 237 in 2019 to 802 in 2025.<\/p>\n
Three trusts, Barts Health Trust and Lewisham and Greenwich Trust in London, and Morecambe Bay Trust in Cumbria, told the union that children and young people were spending more than three days waiting for a bed in A&E.<\/p>\n
One A&E nurse said such long waiting times were “extremely distressing” for the patients involved and the staff caring for them. “A&E is simply seen as a great receptacle for all children who are dysregulated or in crisis. But A&E is not a respite for children with mental health concerns, which can often exacerbate their trauma,” said another.<\/p>\n
Dr Sam Jones, a mental health researcher at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said children in mental health crises were now more unwell than ever before.<\/p>\n
“While levels of poor mental health are rising, the nature of needs is also changing rapidly. Problems are becoming more complex and serious, more young children are affected, and rates of self-harm and eating disorders continue to rise,” Jones said.<\/p>\n
The RCN estimates that around half a million young people under the age of 18 have sought help for a mental health problem in A&E facilities in England since 2019. Two thirds (80) of trusts from which the RCN asked for data provided data. According to the responses, the hospital treated a total of 330,367 similar patients from 2019 to 2025.<\/p>\n
Including the 45 trusts that did not respond, we estimated that a total of around 492,350 children and young people across all trusts were exposed to severe mental health distress.<\/p>\n
Professor Nicola Ranger, general secretary and chief executive of the RCN, said: “The fact that half a million children and young people with a mental health crisis are attending A&E is evidence of a catastrophic failure across the system.”<\/p>\n
The RCN and RCPCH are calling on ministers and NHS chiefs to accelerate the rollout of a planned network of mental health emergency units so that people under 18 can seek help in A&E.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Gray, director of the NHS Alliance Mental Health Network, said: [are] Improper or even harmful configurations will result in extremely long latencies. This is bad for both patients and staff. \u201d<\/p>\n
An NHS England spokesperson said: “A busy A&E is not the right place for someone in a mental health crisis. That’s why children have access to 24\/7 support through NHS 111, which combines crisis assessment, rapid response and home treatment where necessary.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NHS has also expanded its mental health services, with 70 per cent more children now receiving support than before the pandemic. Mental health support teams have also been deployed to schools to provide early help and prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Children #mental #health #crisis #wait #days #specialist #beds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Children and young people experiencing a mental health crisis in England spend up to three days in A&E wards before being placed in specialist beds, NHS figures have revealed. A children’s nurse who works in an emergency department said it was “frankly barbaric” to wait this long for patients under the age of 18 in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[798,793,794,796,173,488,797,795],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-beds","tag-children","tag-crisis","tag-days","tag-health","tag-mental","tag-specialist","tag-wait"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}