Children and teenagers struggling with serious mental health problems are being sent for treatment as far as 285 miles away from home.

Canterbury and Coastal has topped a national list of clinical commissioning group areas for the furthest distance an under-18 was sent for inpatient care last year.

Data obtained by Barbara Keeley MP, the shadow minister for mental health, shows that young people from Canterbury and surrounding areas were also sent hundreds of miles away for treatment in 2016-17, when at least one travelled 215 miles, and in 2015-16, when the furthest placement was 172 miles away.

The shocking figures have led to calls for more acute mental health beds in the city.

Lauren Reed, 21, was admitted to hospital twice between the ages of 12 and 14 while struggling with depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder, the first time in Ticehurst, East Sussex and the second in Sevenoaks.

"When I found out where I was being sent, I remember feeling like I was even more alone than I thought I was,” she said.

“I felt so out the way from friends and family, especially because the distance made it harder for my family to visit, and harder for me to go on home leave.

“I remember being so angry with the system. I knew nobody, I didn’t know where I was, nothing was familiar. I was very home sick.

“I didn’t engage with the therapy or anything for a while. I didn’t see the point, if I couldn’t see my family. In a way, it was like what is there for me to work for?

“In my own opinion, after going through it myself, taking somebody away from their environment that they live in can do more damage than good.

“We need familiar things around us. We need more beds here. We need a safe place in our own area, a place where we know the surroundings and can feel closer to 'normal life'.”

The closest hospital beds for under-18s in Canterbury with serious mental health problems such as severe depression, eating disorders and psychosis are in Tonbridge and Godden Green, near Sevenoaks.

Lauren also made the 60-mile journey to London each week for a year and a half after her diagnosis to attend appointments and group sessions at the South London and Maudsley Mental Health Trust.

“Just travelling to London was a massive thing for me,” she continued.

“My anxiety hated it, I hated it. It wasn’t good, but Canterbury had nothing.

“We had to leave Canterbury at 6.30 in the morning. To make it on time cost £60 to £70 every week, which for my mum as a single parent was extremely hard.”

Experts say separating young people with complex mental health problems from family and friends can be frightening, reduces recovery prospects and increases the risk of self-harm.

Ken Rogers, chairman of Concern for Health in East Kent, said the figures strengthened calls for a new hospital in Canterbury, and for the facility to include more acute mental health beds.

“It’s staggering. Mental health in this area is a real problem,” he said.

“GPs have told me that if they are presented with somebody at 6.30 on a Friday night with an acute mental health problem they don’t know what to do, because there isn’t anywhere that they can put them.

“If we can get a new hospital, what we want included in that hospital is some acute mental health beds that will relieve the problem.

“We haven’t got the provision in East Kent at the moment. That’s not acceptable and we need to do something about it.”

Barbara Keeley MP, who obtained the figures under the Freedom of Information Act, said: “All the evidence shows that sending people out of area to receive treatment for mental health conditions is harmful to their recovery.

“It is heartbreaking that vulnerable young people in Canterbury are being forced hundreds of miles away from their parents, families and wider support networks to receive the treatment that they need.”

Children referred for care in Ashford travelled the shortest distance at 49 miles for treatment while in Dartford, Gravesend and Swale, some had to travel 126 miles.

In west Kent, accessing patient care involved journeys of 180 miles for some patients.

Across England as a whole, 1,039 children and young people were admitted to a non-local bed in 2017-18.

NHS England policy states that to maximise the chances of recovery, “patients should be treated in a location which helps them to retain the contact they want to maintain with family, carers and friends and to feel as familiar as possible with the local environment”.

A spokesman for NHS England, which manages mental health services for children and adolescents in the Canterbury CCG area, said there were plans to provide 12 new beds at Godden Green early next year.

Although 72 additional beds were opened in the south of England in the 2017/18 financial year, none were in Kent.

They said: "It is completely unacceptable for patients to be sent away from their family and friends for treatment – that's why the NHS is opening more specialist beds to tackle this and we have committed to ending inappropriate placements altogether by 2020.

"We are transforming mental health services with record investment and an ambitious plan to increase the workforce - and will announce further improvements to mental health provision later this year as part of our long-term plan for the NHS.

"For Kent, there are two CAMHS units at Tonbridge and Godden Green which provides services to Kent as well as some London units where that is appropriate. Sometimes young people need admission to highly specialist services that are commissioned for much larger populations which does mean further travel distances.

"We have reduced the number of younger people travelling long distances and remain committed to achieving this for all by 2020."

Rosie Duffield, Labour MP for Canterbury, said: "My constituents deserve so much better than this failing service, which separates children from their families at a time when everything should be done to keep vulnerable people as close together as possible.

"I know, from constituents who have approached me for help, how infuriating the long waits are for mental health treatment for our under-18s.

"Now to learn how far our young people have to travel when they do finally receive treatment is just another indication of how the current service here in Canterbury, and in the wider area, is completely unfit for purpose.

"I will be raising this with the CCG and with the Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock.

"This is also something I am hoping colleagues on the APPG for Mental Health will be looking into with urgency when parliament resumes next week."

Helen Whately, Conservative MP for Faversham and chair of the APPG for mental health, said: "It's worrying to hear that children with mental health problems are being sent miles from home for treatment.
"That makes it much harder for their families to be involved in their care.

"I have had constituents who have been in this situation and it has been very distressing for them.

"The NHS is working hard to reduce inappropriate out of area placements, but it looks like there is more to do.

"I've been worried about children and young people's mental health services in Kent for some time, particularly the long waiting times.

"North East London Foundation Trust has recently taken over as the provider for most of these services, and I recently organised a meeting with them to ask how they would improve things.

"They assured me that they will reduce waiting times to give more children access to care.

"I understand the CCG has committed an extra £1.2 million of funding to improve the service as well. I’ll be holding both NELFT and the CCG to account on these promises."