After falling for two years, the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland highlights a rise in the number of children and young people reported by health boards as being treated for mental illness in non-specialist wards.

Scotland’s 14 territorial health boards have a legal duty to provide age-appropriate services and accommodation. The report states 103 admissions were recorded nationally, involving 90 young people under the age of 18, with almost all admissions made to adult wards and five to general paediatric wards. This compares with 71 admissions involving 66 young people in the previous year.

Attention is also drawn to the effects of a “continued lack” of intensive psychiatric care facilities in Scotland for children and young people.

Chief executive of the Mental Welfare Commission, Colin McKay, said:

“The rise in these figures after a two-year fall is disappointing. We believe the rise may reflect capacity issues within the mental health system as a whole.

Adult intensive care psychiatric units (IPCUs) can often be unsuitable environments for adolescents. They are specialised environments for adults who are very unwell and present with high risk to themselves or others. They are also used routinely to provide care for adults who are engaged in the criminal justice system and court processes due to the security of the environment.

We continue to discuss the need for an IPCU facility for children and young people with government, and are asking that it becomes part of the Mental Health Strategy."

Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, Alex Cole-Hamilton, has called for the CAMHS budget to be boosted and for new mental health beds to be provided north of Dundee. He said:

"Far too many children and young people are waiting over a year for the treatment they need and in some areas just one in three children are treated on time…The CAMHS budget must be boosted, mental health beds need to be established north of Dundee and every GP surgery and A&E in the country should have a mental health practitioner capable of treating people. That is the level of investment and ambition required if the government is to stop failing a generation of young people."