Briefings and responses

A rise in mental health problems in children and young people in recent years, exacerbated by COVID-19, has placed additional pressures on services and has hindered progress in reaching access targets. Targets set to improve the quality of care within inpatient settings, and to reduce their use in the long term, not been met.

This settlement continues to leave local public health teams with limited resources to maintain essential services such as sexual health services and specialist community public health nursing

We need to ensure that children and young people can also access high-quality mental health support outside of school. Many children and young people face challenges accessing support for their mental health. Patchy implementation of policies has also fuelled a postcode lottery in provision meaning that children and young people do not get a consistent offer of support.

School-based counselling and mental health support needs to be fully funded by the Government in all state-funded secondary schools and academies, to help support rising numbers of children and young people reporting mental health issues.

The LGA believes this is a progressive piece of legislation that would undoubtedly impact on smoking prevalence and ultimately reduce rates of smoking-related disease. We look forward to working with the Government and others to enforce this ban as well as ensure plans for a smokefree generation are a success.