The President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), Dr Lade Smith CBE, is calling on the UK Government to address the 'silent mental health pandemic' affecting people across England.
There were 4.1 million people in contact with mental health services in England in 2024/25, a 56% increase compared to 2.6 million in 2016/171. This includes 1.2 million children and young people, accounting for a 118% rise on the 0.5 million during the same period.
In a briefing to the media, Dr Lade Smith CBE said:
“People are unable to get the help they need when they need it, leaving them to suffer from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses with insufficient support and treatment and this affects their life chances. It is atrocious that they are increasingly only able to access care when they reach a crisis point because services are overwhelmed and under resourced. This crisis is of pandemic proportion and yet the needs of those with severe mental illness are rarely acknowledged.”
NHS England data shows there were 1.1 million urgent and emergency referrals to crisis care teams across 2024 and 2025. Around 11% of these referrals were for under-18s (129,982)2.
People who are experiencing a mental health crisis, even those who are suicidal, are too often forced to wait over 24 hours in A&E for care or sent out of their local area because their services don’t have a bed for them. Urgent and emergency mental health beds were almost full – around 95–97% occupied – throughout 2022 to 2024.
Dr Smith continued:
“As a forensic psychiatrist, I see this on the frontline every day - patients who don’t have timely access to appropriate treatments are at greater risk of relapsing, becoming more unwell and, on rare occasions, posing a danger to themselves or others, this is simply unacceptable. Mental health patients, clinicians and services are blamed when people become so unwell they go into crisis – but they often wouldn’t reach this point if they could get care and treatment earlier.
“No one should have their life defined by their illness, and there are effective treatments available for even the most severe mental health conditions, but services are struggling to manage millions of additional patients. The longer we ignore the scale of this challenge the harder it will be to overcome.”
RCPsych is calling on the UK Government to ensure that community mental health services have the resources they need to consistently deliver early intervention, continuity of care and assertive outreach which all help patients engage with their treatment for as long as necessary and reduce the likelihood of relapse and mental health crisis. The Community Mental Health Framework together with 24/7 neighbourhood hubs should be supported and bolstered so as to address the postcode lottery many people currently face when trying to access care.
New response time standards for urgent and emergency mental healthcare are also needed to ensure people in crisis are seen quickly, alongside the intelligent commissioning of beds so that provision meets local demand in each area of the country.
All these measures must be backed by the appropriate investment. Mental healthcare receives less than 9% of NHS spending despite accounting for 20% of the country’s disease burden. It should be receiving approximately £36 billion in 2025/26 rather than the £15.6 billion it is currently expected to receive.
Dr Lade Smith CBE, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, added:
“There is no greater threat to the health of children and young adults than the silent mental health pandemic that has spiralled out of control. Mental illness is keeping people away from school, from work and leading to tragic cases of self-harm and suicide.
“Community mental healthcare is the foundation upon which we can address this crisis and must be readily available in every part of the country, it should be prioritised. We also need new waiting time standards to ensure people receive care as soon as they need it, before they go into crisis.
“Mental health services cannot be expected to deliver outstanding care with only half the necessary funding. The Government must provide them with the resources they need to meet this unprecedented challenge. Doing so will keep people healthy, in work and out of hospital. This is good for individuals, good for productivity and good for the economy of the country.”
Footnotes
- NHS England data shows there were 4,129,290 people in contact with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services at some point in 2024/25, compared to 2,637,916 in 2016/17.
- NHS England data shows there were 136,739 very urgent, 947,215 urgent and 83,503 emergency referrals to crisis care teams across 2024 and 2025. There are known quality concerns with some of this data, with a small number of trusts contributing a large percentage of very urgent referrals. Improvements to data quality and reporting will be required to give us a more confident picture of the pressure on crisis care services.
For further information, please contact:
- Email: press@rcpsych.ac.uk
- Twitter: @rcpsych
- Out-of-hours contact number: 07860 755896