Children's Mental Health Services A 'Disgrace' Vulnerable young people are being put at risk because of "serious and deeply ingrained problems" in children's mental health services, MPs have warned. The Health Select Committee report said there are "major problems" accessing inpatient mental health services, with families facing "battles" to have their children treated. During the inquiry, MPs heard evidence from children who spent months on a waiting list for treatment, while some services admitted they were so overwhelmed that they treated a child only once they had seriously self-harmed. Children as young as 12 were being held in police cells overnight because of a lack of out-of-hours services, while others were being admitted to mental health wards on the other side of the country, the report found. Services in some parts of the country have reported up to a 25% increase in the amount of children and young people looking for help. Dr Sarah Wollaston MP said cyber-bullying and sexting needs to be addressed Dr Sarah Wollaston, chair of the committee, said the growing threat of sexting, cyber-bullying and graphic online content to children's mental health needs to be addressed. She said: "Not only do we have a shortage of prevalence data but we have an issue around the data about the provision of services. It is a disgrace that we don't have provision data on children's mental health services. What we do have is information from all the people we've heard from that there has been an increase in referrals and new issues have arisen around the impact on children's mental health with new technology and the challenges around the online environment that children face, like cyberbullying and sexting. The report said: "There are serious and deeply ingrained problems with the commissioning and provision of children's and adolescents' mental health services. These run through the whole system from prevention and early intervention through to inpatient services for the most vulnerable young people. NHS England has said that 6% of the mental health budget is spent on children, despite half of all adult mental health problems starting before the age of 14. The report called on the Government to invest in services, particularly early intervention measures. Peter Liver, director of ChildLine, said: "These findings do not come as a surprise to us here at ChildLine. We have held over 34,000 counselling sessions with young people this year who have told us they have suicidal thoughts. Children are telling us they feel unable to ask for help from anyone else and we need to ensure they know they are not alone. Norman Lamb, care and support minister, said a task force had been launched to improve services and a new waiting time standard would be introduced. He said: "I strongly welcome this report, which will support our work and the work of the task force to make sure children and young people's services get the priority they deserve."