Dwindling school nurses unable to help solve mental health crisis, RCN warns

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has said that school nurses could help tackle the crisis in children’s mental health, but that staff numbers were reducing.

The RCN surveyed 277 school nurses, with 68 per cent saying that there was insufficient school nursing services in their area to provide sufficient care and support to young people. 70 per cent expressed concern about heavy workloads, with 30 per cent highlighting admin as a task which took up a significant amount of time.

The new comes as data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has shown the number of school nurses in England has fallen by 10 per cent since 2010. The figures reveal that there are now 2,700 school nurses who care for nine million pupils.

Data from the charity Young Minds has shown that 110 per cent of children and young people aged five to 16 suffer from a mental health disorder.

Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said: "Mental health is a mounting problem for children and young people. There are huge variations in care across the country and far too many vulnerable children are just not getting the support they need.

"School nurses have the skills and the experience to provide a wide range of mental health support, from counselling to promoting healthy lifestyles. But, as our survey shows, there are too few of them, and they are simply too stretched.

"All children deserve access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time. Only by investing in school nursing and wider mental health services, can this crisis be tackled and children be given the best chance possible of leading happy and healthy lives."

A government spokesman commented: "Children's mental health is a priority for this government and we are putting a record £1.4 billion into transforming the support available to young people in every area of the country. This funding will help recruit more staff and create improved training that school nurses can access.

"We are working with NHS England to strengthen the links between schools and mental health services through a £3 million pilot, and are investing £1.5 million on developing peer-support networks in schools."