Health

We’ve used the total number of children in contact with NHS-funded secondary mental health, learning disability and autism services in England as our core measure for this sector. This captures children who have been referred to these services by their GP or other healthcare professionals and includes both those who have received services and those who are still waiting to be seen. Using this measure, we aim to count the children most likely to need help. But it’s important to remember that it depends on whether a child or their family seeks treatment and whether they receive a referral. This can be affected by changes in awareness and diagnosis.  

We report figures for Wales separately, as the systems are different. 

What does our core indicator show? 

Overall, this measure shows a worsening picture. The number of children referred to NHS mental health services in England has been rising since 2017/18. In 2024/25, 1.2 million children were referred – up 7% on the year before, up 59% on the year before Covid (2019/20) and up 118% on what it was in 2016/17, the earliest year in our data. These increases could partly be explained by increased awareness or changes in referrals and reporting, but other data indicates that the increase in referrals likely does reflect a real need for mental health support. Analysis conducted by the Children’s Commissioner showed that the number of children referred to services because they’re ‘in crisis’ (i.e. in acute distress, often self-harming or suicidal) has risen. In 2023/24, 59,700 children were referred for being in crisis, up by 7.7% from 2022/23. 

The picture is slightly different for Wales. The earliest available child data is from 2020/21, and the number of referrals have shown a less consistent trend since then in comparison to England. In 2024/25, 12,752 children were referred to Local Primary Mental Health Support Services in Wales. This is down 5% compared to the previous year (2023/24).