The Royal College of Psychiatrists has reported that mental health services received a record 4.3 million referrals during 2021 as the pandemic continued to take a toll on people’s mental health.

NHS Digital data indicates that there were 3.3 million referrals to adult services and 1.025 million referrals of under-18s in England between January and December 2021. When the Omicron variant of Covid-19 arrived in December, a record one million people were receiving specialist treatment for conditions including addiction, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In December alone, 424,963 children and young people were in contact with mental health services in December 2021 compared with 367,403 in December 2019, with the figure sitting at 642,303 for adults over the same period.

The figures also show that there were 1,834,137 appointments attended across mental health, learning disability and autism services compared with 1,599,584 in December 2019.

With 1.4 million people waiting for treatment the Royal College of Psychiatrists is calling on the government to urgently publish a mental health recovery plan to reduce waiting times. The plan must include funding to expand services, train more psychiatrists and replace crumbling mental health facilities across the country.

Dr Adrian James, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “As the pressure on services continues to ratchet up, the silence from government continues to be of grave concern for the College, the wider mental health workforce and, most importantly, our patients.

“The warning of the long tail of mental ill health caused by the pandemic has not been heeded. Many thousands of people will be left waiting far too long for the treatment they need unless the government wakes-up to the crisis that is engulfing the country.

“Staff are working flat-out to give their patients the support they need but the lack of resources and lack of staff mean it’s becoming an impossible situation to manage. We don’t need warm words or empty commitments. We need a fully funded plan for mental health services, backed by a long-term workforce plan, as the country comes to terms with the biggest hit to its mental health in generations.”