{"id":4090,"date":"2026-02-19T16:27:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/children-on-mental-health-waiting-lists-turning-to-ai-chatbots-for-support\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T16:27:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:27:37","slug":"children-on-mental-health-waiting-lists-turning-to-ai-chatbots-for-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/children-on-mental-health-waiting-lists-turning-to-ai-chatbots-for-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Children on mental health waiting lists turning to AI chatbots for support"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2026-02-19 16:27:34<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>Half a million children stuck on National Health Service (NHS) mental health waiting lists may turn to artificial intelligence chatbots for help.<BR><br \/>\nThe Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned that long delays for treatment risk fuelling a \u201cdangerous reliance\u201d on unvetted technology, as desperate young people look for instant answers online.<BR><br \/>\nLatest NHS England figures show 550,610 children and young people are currently waiting for mental health support. Of those, 53 per cent have been waiting more than a year \u2013 and 30 per cent have been stuck in limbo for over two years.<BR><br \/>\nDr Lade Smith, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: \u201cThe number of young people waiting for mental health treatment in England is just unacceptable.<BR><br \/>\n\u201cIf you&#8217;re a 12-year-old child, two years is a sixth of your life, this is a large part of your developmental process.<BR><br \/>\n\u201cAnd without a doubt, that delay in treatment will interfere with your ability to achieve your potential and get on with your life.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nShe added: \u201cThere truly is a lack of ambition to treat mental illness in children and young people.<BR><br \/>\n\u201cThe good news is that most can be effectively treated, but if left untreated, this risks a young person becoming an adult with a chronic illness that interferes with life chances \u2013 interferes with their relationships, interferes with their education and interferes with them being able to work.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nDr Guy Northover warned that AI tools may appear helpful \u2013 but could do harm.<BR><br \/>\n\u201cWhile publicly available AI tools may give instant answers that feel supportive, in reality they don&#8217;t have the safeguards in place to ensure the advice given is actually safe or appropriate for a vulnerable child,\u201d he said.<BR><br \/>\n\u201cSomeone struggling with their mental health shouldn&#8217;t have to worry about \u2018factchecking\u2019 their own support.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nA Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \u201cNo parent should be worrying about their child&#8217;s mental health, which is why we have already helped nearly 40,000 more young people access support.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nThey added the government is investing \u00a3688 million extra into services and expanding school-based support.<BR><br \/>\nBut psychiatrists insist urgent action is needed \u2013 warning that without faster access to care, children may continue to seek help from algorithms instead of experts.<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2026-02-19 16:27:34 Half a million children stuck on National Health Service (NHS) mental health waiting lists may turn to artificial intelligence chatbots for help. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4091,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090\/revisions\/4091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}