A significant investment of just over £4m has been secured to help tackle waiting lists and transform the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAHMS).
There are around 1200 children currently on the waiting list to see CAHMS, the overwhelming majority of which are waiting for an Autism or ADHD assessment. Around £500k will be used for the immediate recruitment of six professionals to assist with those assessments and provide support post-diagnosis.
Once the list is reduced to a sustainable level it is intended that the average waiting time to access CAMHS will then be a maximum of 18 weeks for routine assessments, down from the current average of 48 weeks, with an ambition to offer assessments within six.
Where a referral is defined as urgent the aim will then be for patients to be seen within 24 hours, and if very urgent seen within four hours.
It is recognised that it will need more than a targeted waiting list to ensure the service is placed onto a sustainable footing. To achieve this the majority of the funding, £3.4million, will be invested to transform the way services are accessed and provided – focusing on early intervention, community based support and providing a dedicated provision within educational settings.
The transformation of the service will include the creation of a single access point which will include self-referrals, an additional 400 shared-care agreements with GPs for the treatment of ADHD, access to psychological therapies for children and young people with low to moderate needs, and the delivery of dedicated mental health support within the Islands’ secondary schools and UCM.
Minister for Health and Social Care said:
‘Access to the right level of mental health support, diagnosis pathways and suitable treatments is crucial for our children and young people. This funding represents a significant step toward improving that accessibility, which was also highlighted in the COVID review and will play a key role in our upcoming Wellbeing and Mental Health strategy.
Just as we’ve successfully reduced surgical waiting lists, we intend that this will have positive impact on children’s mental health waiting lists, and help transform the service to ensure children are no longer facing unacceptably long waiting times to access mental health support and treatment.’
Ross Bailey, Head of Integrated Mental Health Services, said:
‘This funding will have a hugely positive impact on our ability to provide the services that our community needs. It’s not only going to allow us to reduce the current waiting lists, but will ensure that the mental health needs of children and young people are identified and appropriately responded to earlier.
However, our biggest challenge is the recruitment of staff to those new positions. Currently the market is very competitive and we are seeing issues globally with filling posts. I’m confident though, that once we have those people in post we will be able to quickly start on those assessments.’
The dedicated CAHMS service was originally designed to manage severe, complex and persistent disorders. However historically there has been an absence of provision for lower or moderate needs on the Island, and a growing demand for wellbeing and mental health support, which the CAHMS service has been trying to manage in addition to the higher needs cases.
The CAHMS caseload, including these lower and moderate needs cases, has increased by 90% in the last three years, with over 13% of all the islands children and young people aged 4-17 in receipt of treatment or awaiting assessment.
This transformation is intended to resolve these long standing issues. More information on the service transformation will follow, including an upcoming procurement exercise for a provider who can assist with the core functions of introducing a single point of access, as well as delivering psychological therapies and mental health provision in educational settings.
