One Million Children Referred for Mental Health Care
More than one million children in England were referred to mental health services in 2024-25, with anxiety listed as the most common reason.
A new Children’s Commissioner report shows 1,048,965 children had an active referral to Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services in 2024-25.
That is almost double the number recorded in 2018-19 and represents nearly one in every 10 children in England.
Children’s Mental Health Referrals Pass One Million
The Children’s Commissioner’s annual report shows referrals rose by almost 10% in a year.
The latest figure covers children either waiting for support or receiving it through Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services.
Anxiety was the most common known referral reason, accounting for 16% of all referrals.
The rise is not limited to anxiety.
Referrals for suspected autism increased from 65,530 to 96,393 in a single year, while referrals for other neurodevelopmental conditions also rose sharply.
Those categories include conditions such as ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome.
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Long Waits Remain the Pressure Point
The report’s strongest warning is about access.
More children are entering support, but demand is still moving faster than service capacity.
The Children’s Commissioner says over a third of children referred were still waiting for treatment.
More than 60,000 children had been waiting over two years for help, up from more than 44,000 the previous year.
For children referred with suspected autism or neurodevelopmental conditions, fewer than one in five went on to receive support in 2024-25.
Those who did receive support waited about a year on average.
That means the system is not only handling more referrals. It is also leaving some children waiting through major stages of school, development and family life.
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Inequality Shows Up in Referral Routes
The data also points to unequal access.
Children from the poorest 10% of areas made up 15% of referrals, compared with 7.6% from the least deprived areas.
The report also raises concern about black and Asian children being underrepresented in referrals.
When black children are referred, they are more likely to be referred in severe distress or crisis.
One in four black children directed to mental health services were referred for being in crisis, compared with 16% of Asian children and 7.4% of white children.
That gap suggests some children may not be getting support early enough.
It also points to a wider failure of trust, access and early identification across health, education and community services.
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Commissioner Calls for Joined-Up Support
Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza described the figures as stark and said the scale of demand shows the challenge facing mental health services.
Her report calls for a shift toward joined-up support across health, education and social care.
That matters because children do not experience anxiety, suspected autism or crisis in separate public-service boxes.
They experience them at school, at home, online, with friends, in GP appointments and inside stretched family routines.
The official NHS waiting-times data for 2024-25 also shows the issue is now a system-wide capacity test, not a short-term backlog.
The question for ministers is whether mental health support reaches children earlier, or whether services continue to act mainly once distress has become more severe.
For families, the number is already clear enough: more than one million children are somewhere inside the referral system.
TL;DR
- 1,048,965 children in England had active mental health referrals in 2024-25.
- That is almost double the figure recorded in 2018-19.
- Anxiety was the most common known reason, accounting for 16% of referrals.
- Suspected autism referrals rose from 65,530 to 96,393 in one year.
- More than 60,000 children had waited over two years for support.
- The report warns of inequalities by ethnicity and deprivation.
