Promises to roll-out a four-week waiting time standard for children seeking mental health help appear to be up in the air after a consultation on plans warned of “unintended consequences”.
As pledged in the 2017 mental health green paper, the NHS piloted a four-week waiting time for children to access specialist mental health services.
Following the pilots in 2021, it then proposed the four-week wait would become a new standard that services would be expected to deliver. This would mean youngsters referred to community-based mental health services getting help within four weeks.
NHS data from 2021–22 showed youngsters waited on average nearly six weeks between referral and treatment.
