Monique Collier from YPAS on funding cuts

Liverpool Live

A Liverpool charity that supports thousands of children with mental health issues, says lives could be put at risk because of cuts to their funding.

YPAS have seen their funding cut by 43% - last year they say they helped over 2 thousand children and hundreds of families.

Charity CEO Monique Collier told our reporter Adam Phillips that it's a desperate situation.

We contacted Liverpool CCG for a statement:

"NHS budgets are under increasing pressure both locally and nationally, with demand for health services continuing to grow.

NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group needs to make significant savings to its budget over the next two years, which unfortunately means that we cannot continue to fund all of the services we have in the past.

Around 90% of our budget has to be spent on the provision of core NHS services, including GP services, hospitals, community health and mental health, so we have to find savings in other areas.

After a review of other spending, we have made the very difficult decision not to renew or to reduce funding for a number of different services provided by voluntary and community organisations, which includes YPAS.

These decisions have not been taken lightly - we fully recognise the valuable role that the voluntary and community sector, including YPAS, plays in supporting the health and wellbeing of local young people."