Fonagy review finds distress among young people has risen substantially

Someone in the finance office would say that an absence bill for the whole workforce tells a graduate-scheme manager little about next year's recruits. I think the objection holds. Personnel Today's account of the review does not say what period the £300bn covers or how much of it falls on workers under 25 ^[3].

Support that depends on a formal diagnosis moves only as fast as the assessment queue. Of the children with an open mental health referral in a single year, roughly 6 percent had waited more than two years ^[17]. More than 254,000 people had an open autism referral, and over 90 percent of them had waited beyond thirteen weeks ^[6]. On those figures, more than 228,000 people were past the 13-week mark ^[18]. The review found that long assessment delays often stand between people and wider help and advice ^[7].

Fonagy put the strain in the route to help. "Our findings show a system under immense strain, where diagnosis has increasingly become a very narrow pathway to finding support for distress caused by complex and wide-ranging factors," he said ^[10]. He wants success judged by a person's overall wellbeing and their "ability to take part in work, education, and staying connected to their community" ^[11].

Yvette Cooper, named in the report as health secretary, gave the government's response. "It is clear that mental health services need to change to focus more on the early support young people need to stay in education or work or keep their lives on track," she said ^[12]. She said the response would come in a new Mental Health Strategy "in the coming months" ^[13], and that all ADHD and autism diagnostic assessments would become CQC-regulated ^[14]. Through that strategy, the Department of Health and Social Care has pledged to rework mental health support on a large scale ^[9].

This quarter, employers can write support policy around need now or wait for the detail. In my view, a policy triggered by need is the safer one to write, because the government says its own services will move to that test ^[8]. A policy that requires a diagnosis and is agreed this quarter would be stricter than the public system once the strategy is published. Waiting carries its own delay. The other document employers would want, Alan Milburn's review of young people outside education, employment or training, may slip past the Budget, Personnel Today reported ^[19]. That group numbers almost one million people aged 16 to 24 ^[15]. Separately, a record 2.8 million Britons are too sick to work ^[16].