Children and young people are being overdiagnosed with mental health conditions in a society that has lost sight of the reality that child development is “messy and uneven”, the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said.
He is the latest senior figure to add his voice to calls for a radical overhaul of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system in England.
Hunt said in his half decade as health secretary, he witnessed “an alarming escalation” in the prevalence and severity of mental ill-health among young people, as well as significant increases in diagnoses of neurodevelopmental conditions.
In a foreword to a new report by the centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange, Hunt said: “Mental ill-health and neurodiversity now accounts for more than half of the post-pandemic increase we have seen in claimants of disability benefit. Spending on Send provision has sky-rocketed and risks the financial sustainability of local government.
“Rather than assuming that more money or more of the same is the answer, we need to ask more fundamental questions. Is a cash transfer – or a label that means young people are treated and come to see themselves as different – the right way to help them?”
He added: “Across the political spectrum, and amongst a growing range of practitioners, it is now recognised that there is a level of ‘overdiagnosis’ [in] our system. We need to cut through the complexity to better understand the drivers of demand we are seeing.”
Hunt, who is Conservative MP for Godalming and Ash, and has also served as chancellor and foreign secretary under the Conservatives, said: “As a society, we seem to have lost sight of the fundamental reality that child development is a messy and uneven process.
“Our laudable desire to ensure young people are happy and well-supported is at times manifesting in excessive impulses to medicalise and diagnose the routine in a manner that can undercut grit and resilience.”
The government is expected to publish a white paper later this year detailing how it plans to reform the Send system. Parents are concerned that education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – legally enforceable documents that detail a child or young person’s needs, and the support they require – will be targeted.
In January this year the number of EHCPs in place rose to 638,745 – up 10.8% on the same point last year. The Policy Exchange report, Out of Control, says EHCPs should be limited to students in special schools and that school mental health support should be targeted at those “that most need it, rather than blanket offers”.
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Tania Tirraoro, co-director of Special Needs Jungle, a parent-led Send website, said: “It’s a bit rich of Jeremy Hunt to claim this, given his government presided over deep cuts to public services, including Camhs [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services], a narrowed curriculum, meaning children who thrived in arts and practical subjects were cut adrift, and a botched response to the pandemic.
“What we are seeing now is the result of that – young people who have grown up in a hostile environment, trying to navigate an explosion of unregulated social media and without the support services they need. It is most certainly not widely accepted that there is an overdiagnosis – this is something put out by people like him to deflect from these failings.”
The Department for Education was approached for comment. The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, previously said the government will protect the legal right to additional support for children with Send.