HEALTH chiefs in North East Hampshire and Farnham have defended their record on meeting the mental health needs of abused and neglected children, after criticism by the NSPCC.

More than 190,000 children across the South East who have been abused or neglected are living in an area with inadequate planning for their mental health needs, new NSPCC research estimates.

By giving them a traffic light rating, the charity analysed the latest annual plans published by NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), which set out how they will care for children’s mental health.

The analysis showed almost half of CCGs in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight were failing to properly plan for the needs of vulnerable children including those who had been abused.

Surrey and Hampshire’s CCGs, including the North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG, were rated ‘amber’ for 2017/18, recognising that plans “mention some data sources such as children on protection plans or reported offences against children to understand local need”, but still require improvement. This is an upgrade on the ‘red’ score awarded to Hampshire’s CCGs in 2015/16 and Surrey’s in 2016/17, however, which signified “no recognition of the increased mental health needs of vulnerable groups”.

All 195 CCGs in England were assessed by the NSPCC and for 2017/18, 146 were rated amber and 21 were rated red. This means that an estimated 1.3 million abused children in England are living in an area with inadequate plans for their mental health needs, or with no plans for their care whatsoever.

The NSPCC is calling on all NHS CCGs to urgently recognise and plan for the increased mental health needs of children who have been abused.

Almudena Lara, NSPCC’s head of policy and public affairs, said: “We recognise the hard work of NHS staff providing much-needed mental health services to young people. These ratings are not a reflection on those services and the staff working to deliver them.

“But our analysis shows that there are CCGs across the England that are still not properly planning for the mental health needs of abused children and young people. It is crucial these children are supported to get back on track and lead healthy lives.

“In future we want to see more CCGs not only recognise the needs of these children, but go further and ensure services are there to support them.”

A spokesman for NHS North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG said: “Children living in North East Hampshire have a range of services available to them to support their mental health.

“The NHS recognises the vulnerability of children who have experienced abuse and because of this we fund posts in The Willow Team which supports young people who are missing, exploited or trafficked.

“We also provide a range of counselling services available to young people who have experienced emotional trauma, and we commission Barnado’s to deliver parenting support programmes to assist families.

“This refresh of our Local Transformation Plan gives us the opportunity of making sure that the NHS is offering good quality support to children.”