Closed petition The Government Must Cut Waiting Times For Children’s Mental Health Services

Closed on 16 November 2018

We call on the government to tackle the mental health epidemic at the root, and fast - to do this it needs to cut waiting times for children (5-16 years old), shortening its timeline to introduce maximum waiting times by 2022-23. If not, our country will lose countless young lives in the meantime.

On May 9 two committees of MPs published a report saying the government's plans will take too long to come into effect and will ‘fail a generation’. On average, a child waits a decade from the moment they suffer their first symptom of poor mental health to receiving treatment. At such a crucial stage in children's development, mental health issues should be treated as a matter of urgency. Diagnosing and treating issues early will help deal with problems before they develop into something worse.