How do we stop young people being passed around like suitcases?

A young friend once told me they felt like a ‘suitcase’, when they had reached out for help for their mental health. They felt like they were being passed around from person to person, GP to counsellor, and felt lost. Yet if there’s one thing about suitcases, we never want them lost.

However, the fact is there’s a lot more, young lost luggage in this country’s mental health services, and this Government are the baggage handlers. There’s a crisis in the care of our mental health, yet the scandal is still ignored.

This week we heard of a 16-year-old woman who was kept in a police cell for two days because there wasn’t a single hospital bed from which to care for her. At a point when she was most vulnerable, she was further rejected by our health system, and forced to neighbor the incumbents of police cells typical to a Friday and Saturday night. It’s the sour cherry on top of a crumbling cake.

Following an investigation by Community Care and BBC News, it’s been found that nearly 500 beds have been cut over the past year alone, with many services running at over 100% occupancy. It’s this concussed state of service that’s recently led to at least seven lives lost through suicide due to being turned away. Furthermore, they are not simply isolated to a trust or unit, with such tragic loss being seen across the country.

Add to this the increasing number of young people now being forced back on to adult wards, stories of many who have been literally taxied across the country when in critical conditions, and the rate of youth mental health problems still on the rise; the landscape of mental health services in this country is certainly bleak. It is evident there are serious financial and legal issues to be challenged. However, culturally there is also much that we can do now.

So what can we do? A good place to start is to identify what is wanted. My school pastoral care teacher always seemed to think the best solution was to ignore it all: ‘it breeds the hissy fits’ she once told me. She was wrong; she also evidently wasn’t very nice. So instead of her, we need services that have the input of young people, services users. This is key because not only is adolescence the peak time for vulnerability to mental health problems, but it is also the lowest point for service use. Clinical commissioners should therefore invite young people to help them commission services that fit their needs and wants – and I don’t just mean a questionnaire.

Secondly, make things simpler. The other week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Labour Campaign for Mental Health launch. There, numerous young people told Luciana Berger, and the rest of the panel, that they wanted more under the same roof. Why can’t I go for an STI test in the same building where I could go see a counsellor, or get financial help or with housing? Such a holistic approach to health – mental and physical – would improve early intervention, helping young people before problems arise and also relieve the system later on.

Obviously these are just some suggestions. For more we must do two things. First you should start seeing young people as the answers, and not just the problems being discussed. Only then can we have tailored services that meet the needs of those that will be using them. Secondly, mental health should be forced on to agendas wider than those titled ‘health’. Lets start to ask what teachers can do, or social workers, or employers.

From these points we can then start to reclaim our lost young luggage.