Children and young people will benefit from additional funding for mental health services which includes addressing the increasing demand for the treatment of eating disorders.

NHS England says that an extra £40 million has been allocated to address the coronavirus impact on children and young people’s mental health and enhance services across the country. One way the additional money will be spent is to support ensuring the right type of beds are in the right places, or that alternatives to admission are in place, supporting parts of the country that have more challenges in their range of bed capacity.

Across the country £10 million capital funding is being used to provide extra beds at units which provide care for young people with the most complex needs, including eating disorders, as well as £1.5 million to ensure there are additional facilities for children under 13.

This funding is in addition to existing government funding and support pledges for children and young people’s mental health in the community, including via increased access to crisis and eating disorder services, and new mental health support teams being rolled out. By April 2023, there will be around 400 teams covering 35 per cent of the country.

£30 million revenue and £10 million capital will be used across a number of schemes including supporting services to prevent the need for admission and to train staff working with children with mental health issues on children’s wards to ensure they have the skills to manage mental health conditions even if they are not specialist mental health staff.

Money will also be spent on establishing an intensive community support role to prevent children being admitted to hospitals and facilitating earlier discharge as in many cases the best place for children and young people to receive care is in their own home. This will enable the training of 96 associate practitioner psychologists who will be trained to practice under close supervision with those who have complex and severe mental health conditions, to provide care both in hospital and within the home.

Claire Murdoch, national mental health director, said: “This pandemic has hit our young people hard and while services have remained open throughout, we have seen an increase in the numbers of children and young people seeking help from the NHS for their mental health.

“This additional funding is in recognition of the rising demand and our continued commitment to provide the best care as early as possible and to do as much to prevent children and young people needing hospital treatment as we do to ensure that when they are in hospital they receive the right treatment before being supported back at home.”