Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health, commenting on remarks made to the Health Select Committee by the Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, and the CQC Chief Inspector of Mental Health Services, Dr Paul Lelliott, said:

“The scandal of children being turned away from mental health treatment because they don’t meet thresholds of mental ill health is a direct cause of the Tory Government’s failure to protect mental health budgets.

“Even where children are able to access services, they can face unacceptably long delays: the CQC recently found some children waiting 18 months for treatment after referral.

“The Tory Government must ring-fence mental health funding in the upcoming Budget: anything less will prove that their pledges to make mental and physical health a priority are just empty words.”