Can CAMHS do this?

[tallywag]

DS has been waiting for a referral to CAMHS for a long time. Has finally got an appointment and they have said that he will be offered CBT. But now they say they cannot give any indication at all when it might be? CAMHS manager can't even offer a ball park figure of whether it will be months or years. Which I think is pretty rubbish to be honest. It feels like he is just being put on hold until he ages out of the system. Is there any other way I can find out the length of the waiting lists for our area? Aren't they all supposed to have service targets or something? Thanks.

i know that they are massively underfunded but they are appalling.

My DD was self harming and developed anxiety and depression during lockdown and we had zero help. They wrote to us after months on a waiting list thanking us for attending the anxiety course and discharging us. After challenging this, we hadn't even been told there was a course, they admitted they'd made a mistake but said we would need to be rereffered to go back on the waiting list.

Sadly the camhs service in this country is a complete mess. It’s in no way fit for purpose

I sympathise but even when you get the help it's not particularly good.

If I could go back to the time when my dd used CAMHS I would instead have moved heaven and earth to find the money to go private. Or, instead of dismissing the charities they pointed us to on faded much photocopied paper, I would have at least tried that route.

CAMHS is not as wonderful as many believe it is, although it's worth staying on the waiting list just to see if they come up with anything.

Perhaps a FOI Act request through the whatdotheyknow site might provide some useful information, but don't put your own name, and keep it general or you will get worse service!

Good luck

It does depend on where you are in the country but for many it is well over a year, sometimes two. It will almost certainly be a number of months. And it would probably only be about 6-8 sessions, bear that in mind. If you have any way of accessing private counselling i would recommend it.
I'm sure the people in it do their best but CAMHS is an absolute disgrace, tbh.

DS waited 14 months this was before Covid. He was given 6 sessions which luckily were extended by a further 6.
In the 16 month wait time DS had 5 suicide attempts and each time the A & E Dr's made CAHMS referrals but it never changed the wait times.

MH services are so under funded its heartbreaking.
I hope your child gets support soon OP.

We have a great service in Derbyshire offered to secondary school aged children where parents can self-refer, they’ll get a call back and then if they think appropriate, arrange CBT through school. DD had this earlier this term, missed PE to do her session (bonus) and had I think eight CBT sessions. She was classed as mild to moderate anxiety though, but all I’m saying is there ARE other services out there. Maybe ask your school if they work with similar? Or back to GP?

They can't give a waiting time because factors change over time. Funding changes every year, that means services being changed or withdrawn. Staff leave and cannot be replaced.

It's not acceptable. Even with massive investment, it's going to take a generation to repair the harm the Tories have done.

Meant to say, from me filling in the form to the call back was about 3 days and she had her first assessment session in school the following week.

Are there any guidelines as to when children should start receiving treatment? I looked on NICE but couldn't find anything.

@PuppyMonkey Is that the service run by Relate? If so, it's only available for 16 - 18 year olds now. Funding for the younger age groups has been withdrawn.

No it’s Changing Lives Derbyshire @CorrBlimeyGG

Guidelines won't get your son seen any more quickly. Can you afford for your son to see someone privately?

Changing Lives is run by Action For Children apparently…

@tallywag I couldn't find any either, but I was told by an NHS consultant psychiatrist that "they don't have to follow NICE guidelines, they're just that, guidelines" so even if you find anything, they'll ignore it.

People expect mental health NHS to be on a par with physical health NHS, I did. It came as a shock to realise that a lot of mental health services within the NHS are non existent, rather like the time before the NHS existed. Certainly partly the fault of funding but not all.

Wrong as this is, I wish I'd accepted this fact sooner for my dd's sake, and sought help elsewhere. Nobody should have to, but until mental health services are on a parity with physical, there is no choice.

Have you looked into school based counselling. Where I live there is a service which provides support to primary and secondary aged children and the waiting time is maximum a few months. It's short term counselling but you could stay on the CAMHS list whilst having support. I would ring the school and check

My daughter has depression and anxiety, CAMHS are next to useless, they discharged her after one phone call because she isn’t suicidal and there isn’t capacity to see her. She was offered a support youth group which she doesn’t want to go to and that’s it.
DH and I are trying to get private counselling through his work health insurance instead.
She’s 15 and basically been abandoned, the GP won’t treat her as she’s under 16 and CCG policy is to treat via camhs which they won’t do.

See if you can self refer and use kooth it's a get online tool for the interim

Dsis works for CAHMS. It is not the fault of the doctors and nurses. NICE guidelines say you need CBT before medicating but wait lists for CBT are lengthy. If they do medicate then something awful happens (one colleague prescribed medication and a 14yo killed themself) then the consequences are devastating and its their careers on the line.

The stress is unbelievable. So many mental health doctors are leaving the profession or switching to locum role. Disis is sticking it out because she wants to do good in the world but there are so many patients and not enough staff.

Write to your MP.

Make a complaint via the local PALS with responsibility for your CAMHS about the service. if you can pay privately for CBT.

Agree with every poster on here that they are underfunded, not fit for purpose, often give appalling support and advice when you do get through to them. After the experience with my older child, I have not pushed at all for my other kid to be referred. I actually believe they were detrimental in their treatment of my older child and strangely had little understanding of working with adolescents.

They need millions more and an overhaul of the service provision. Why on earth, when you enter with a teenager, do you get an assessment questionnaire asking is they can share toys with other children.

I’m afraid CAHMS are useless. Not only because they are majorly underfunded but also because when you reach the so-awaited appointment they have very few ways or time to help.

Camhs don’t need to offer cbt before medication. My son has been on antidepressants long before he was in a position to access any therapy THEN he had the long wait to start it.

Make a formal complaint, IME it is the only way to get them to actually do anything. They intended to discharge my dd from their service despite acknowledging that her anxiety was worse than when she was referred and they had offered her no support that took into account that she had autism and so had been inaccessible to her.
Formal complaint brought the head of CAMHS to the house and ensured dd was allocated an ASD experienced PMHW, a psychiatrist to prescribe meds and sessions with the psychologist.
So we went from intention to discharge to fortnightly at home sessions with three experienced clinicians which was what she needed.

my son is medicated without medication, not privately. Absolutely no way he'd engage, it was a battle to get the referral to psychiatry but once I did the wait for that was only 3 months. he was assessed by a clinical psychiatrist who prescribed medication without hesitation. It has done the job, his mood is stable and he has started to engage in life again.

There is no way of knowing the wait I'm afraid. Even an foi request won't really help, because it could only tell you historically not currently. So, I work in SLT. Last year we had 6 members of staff. We are now down to one part time person who already has a full caseload. No one on the waiting list will ever be seen unless we can recruit and we can't recruit. No locums either as they were usually traveling Australian therapists. If we could recruit we might get someone to start in 3 months after notice periods and safeguarding checks. Mainly we don't even get people turning up for interview. The few we have tried to appoint have been inundated with offers and not chosen us. As far as camhs is concerned definitely access private or online training if you can. Plus CBT is unlikely to be a silver bullet quite honestly.

We have been on the waiting list for nearly four years and feel DDs education is suffering as a consequence. We’re in the list still as we had a letter a few months ago. It’s awful but I’d never get angry at staff as I’m aware CAMHS is woefully underfunded. But we really need the help for DD.