Mental health of children is a crucial issue, Miliband warns

The NHS and councils should ensure that children can access counselling to help them cope with the pressures they face growing up, Ed Miliband has said.

The Labour leader said three children in every classroom have a mental health problem, but schemes providing counselling and support had been downgraded.

Acknowledging that politicians had not taken mental health seriously enough in the past, he said a Labour government would give NHS patients the same rights to psychological talking therapies as they currently have for drugs and medical treatment.

Writing in the