More than 500 children a day in England are being referred to NHS mental health services for anxiety, more than double the rate of before the pandemic began, the Guardian can reveal. In 2023-24 there were 204,526 new referrals of patients aged 17 or under where the primary cause was anxiety, official figures show. In 2019-20, the year before Covid-19 struck, the total was 98,953. In 2016-17 it was 3,879.