Almost 500 children and adolescents are waiting longer than they should for mental health treatment in Surrey, a hearing was told.

The longest wait for young people from referral is eight weeks.

The local trust blamed staffing issues, and said it received no applicants in a recent recruitment drive. A representative from The Surrey and Borders Partnership Foundation Trust told the hearing last week that it was recruiting again.

The staffing problems were highlighted in a prevention of future deaths hearing after the inquest into the death of Staines teenager Oskar Nash who took his own life last year, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

When asked by a lawyer if the trust considered the backlog of cases a problem, Trudy Mills, director for children and family health, said: “Yes, we’re out for recruitment. We didn’t get any applicants so we went out again.”
Ms Mills added that the trust needs registered mental health nurses and social workers with child and adolescent mental health experience.

In September an NHS Digital survey found one in six children in England had a probable mental disorder in 2021 – similar to 2020, and up from one in nine in 2017.

Justine Leonard, an operational divisional director with the trust, said referrals had shot up to between 250 and 300 a week since the Covid-19 pandemic, around 60 to 100 more per week than in 2019.

The Trust said it has tripled its number of clinicians since then, from four to 12, and added that the backlog has reduced since 2019 by 80 per cent despite the increased number of referrals.

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