England children wait years for mental health help as referrals soar

NHS data put 526,642 people in contact with children and young people’s mental health services in England at the end of January 2026, while 485,675 new referrals arrived that month.

In 2022-23, 949,200 children and young people were referred to Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services in England, equal to 8% of the country’s 11.9 million children. Of those referrals, 270,300 children and young people, or 28%, were still waiting for support, and 372,800 referrals, 39%, were closed before the child or young person accessed care. For the 305,000 who did receive support, the average wait was 35 days, but nearly 40,000 children waited at least two years.

Anxiety was the most common known reason for referral in the Children’s Commissioner for England’s 2022-23 findings, and a third of referrals were recorded as unknown in the NHS data it cited. Waiting times varied sharply by place, from an average of 147 days in Sunderland to just four days in Southend.

In September 2024, Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, put the number at more than 500 children a day in England being referred for anxiety alone. Her office counted 204,526 new anxiety referrals for patients aged 17 and under in 2023-24, more than double the 98,953 recorded in 2019-20, before Covid. De Souza argues that too many children reach crisis point before they are seen, and that earlier intervention, school-based support and faster diagnosis are needed to stop problems escalating.

NHS England will expand mental health support teams in schools and colleges to every school and college by 2029. It is recruiting 8,500 mental health staff to reduce the longest waits for children and young people’s community mental health services.