Call for mental health screening for all students

Children and adolescents should be screened in school for signs of mental health problems, a leading academic has claimed.

Dr Simon Nicholas Williams, from Cambridge University’s Institute of Public Health, said most mental health problems in adults started in childhood and were costing health and social services billions of pounds a year.

If emotional and mental disorders were caught earlier, interventions could be put in place resulting in fewer incidents of serious economic or social problems, such as crime, unemployment and suicide, later in life, he said.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr Williams said there was no reason why mental health screening should not be carried out, since pupils already receive physical health checks. Screening should be carried out at intervals during the child’s education, he suggested.