Lib Dem unveils funding boost to help more than 100,000 young people and slams previous treatment as 'institutionalised cruelty'
An extra £1.25bn will be spent on mental health services over the next five years to help more than 100,000 young people, Nick Clegg has said.
The deputy prime minister, who made the announcement on Saturday on a visit to Clock View hospital in Liverpool, said the way children had been treated before was an “institutionalised form of cruelty”.
The funding, which amounts to £250m a year, will be confirmed in the budget on Wednesday.
Mr Clegg, who is in the city for the Liberal Democrat spring conference, said an average of three children in every classroom had mental health problems that were not being properly identified or supported.
He said: “It’s an institutionalised form of cruelty, the way we allow vulnerable children with mental health problems to basically have to fend for themselves at the moment.”
The money will help children with conditions such as depression and those at risk of self-harming or committing suicide. It will provide therapy sessions, family support work, better training for clinicians and improved online help.
Clegg added: “It’s all part of a journey where we start, as a country, lifting the stigma that has surrounded mental health and making sure that we treat mental health in the same way as we do people with physical health problems.”
The NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, said: “This much-needed investment will kick-start a multi-year upgrade in care for younger people and their families. NHS nurses, therapists and doctors will use this funding to benefit families in every part of the country.”
The additional funds will also help improve support for new mothers, who had previously struggled with a “second-class mental health service”, Clegg said.
He added: “It is terrifying to think that in this day and age some new mothers are having to travel miles for treatment and others are even being separated from their newborn child. This has to stop.”
The chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, said the financial support for British veterans would be doubled, funding 10 specialist mental health teams that will treat servicemen and women with some of the most complex needs.
The announcement comes just days after the mental health charity Combat Stress revealed that the number of British veterans of the Afghanistan conflict receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder has increased from 102 in 2010 to 945 in 2015.
Securing more money for mental health has been a key goal for the Lib Dems.
The chancellor, George Osborne, will set out his spending plans on Wednesday in the Commons in what will be one of the final acts of the current coalition government, with parliament due to be dissolved at the end of the month.
by Andrew sparrow for the guardian
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