CAHMS - Absolutely Fuming

[BathshebaKnickerStickers]

Sorry, wide awake in the middle of the night because I’m so angry.

My dd - almost 17 - was urgently referred to CAHMS last month because of suicidal feelings and plans.

She had an initial appointment quickly which was an appointment with a very nice nurse to do a background and initial information about how she was feeling and why etc.

She was then posted out an appointment for March.

Sorry, school and the gp both said sorry March is too far away, she needs seen before then, GP intervened and she was due a virtual appointment on Monday afternoon. She was told it wot be done via FaceTime.

She took the afternoon off school so she could be at home for this appointment.

No-one contacted her.

I asked her if she had maybe missed an invitation to a “virtual room” that she had supported to join at her appointment time - no all she had was a text confirming the time - no “joining” link.

No-one contacted her by FaceTime - I’m going to FaceTime someone it’s essentially an outgoing call I make to their number...

No-one phoned her - they have her mobile.

No-one phoned me - they have my mobile

If it was a virtual room that she was supposed to join rather than a FaceTime call, surely when she didn’t jjoin someone should have called - it’s a new system so they must understand that maybe people haven’t used it.

This is a suicidal 16 year old who now has had 2 urgent GP referrals in 6 weeks - the initial one and then this appointment being brought forward.

No joining instructions if it was a virtual room rather than a direct FaceTime call.
No call to her to find out where she was if she had failed to join
No call to me to find out where she was (she was of course sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring.

I am beyond furious. Obviously calling them first thing tomorrow but expecting to be told there is nothing they can do now until mid January or whenever.

Are they so jaded that she is “just another suicidal 16 year old”?

I’m sorry you’re going through this.

It wouldn’t be a FaceTime though because FaceTime only works on apple. It would be a teams or zoom probably.

I'm a paediatric nurse and I know that getting help for kids who harm themselves and/or have suicidal thoughts and tendencies is very very hard.

There is a frightening lack of resources.

There's children on the wards having hurt themselves or attempted suicide on a daily basis.

If it were one of my own children, I would seek help privately.
Psychotherapy can about £60 a session round here.

Sounds like an admin problem yesterday, email head of service of you don’t get any joy today.
Unfortunately I echo lots of other posters in saying don’t hang all your hope with CAMHS and if you have the funds I would second finding a psychiatrist that has experience with children/ adolescents. Your gp may know where to find them.

Recently went through something very similar with my daughter (not the appointment issue but the suicidal feelings and there was self harm) I was emailed a link on the day the appointment was made, for zoom and then the appointment day the “meeting” was in the zoom app. Have you checked emails? I know how your feeling and have had many years with their involvement and it can be a long waiting process. In the end she was issued with a prescription for sertraline but nothing is a quick fix.

Mental health services for young people
Is appalling at the moment.
My Duaghter was referred by our GP 2 years ago. Like yourself, had the initial background info finding appointment very quickly.
She is only now at the top
Of their list to receive 1-2-1 counselling.
Don’t know what else to say other than it’s devastating for our young people.

I would be fuming too, some great advice to go private ! Not everyone can afford to and I wouldn't think it unreasonable to expect a mental health service to help

@SillyOldMummy

Hiw come she was told about it in your absence, are you being excluded from these conversations about appointments? That seems weird.

I would not expect a Facetime call for a medical appointment. Are you sure she didn't mangle the facts to avoid the conversation?

Seriously? Where have you been since March when nearly all medical appointments have been either via phone/FaceTime or another video conferencing app?

Dial 999 and ask for the crisis team would be my advice.

Op, I don’t have any advice for you but just wanted to send you a virtual hug

I’m so sorry to hear about dd and how dd and you’ve been let down. I hope Camhs finally come back.

Please don’t forget to get done support for you in all this. Do you have an RL support network you can lean on, or any counselling for you?

I can only suggest you complain through PALS. I've had really poor input from CAMHS and fundamentally until you complain you tend to get the absolute dregs. Your dd is 17 realistically they are going to string you along until she is eighteen so they can offload her to adult services. You won't get medication prescribed until she is seen by the psychiatrist, she won't see the psychiatrist until she has been through months and months of pretty useless (and mostly cancelled appointments) Do yourself a favour complain through PALS now hopefully to get seen by the psychiatrist as I did although since Covid I have no idea where the psychiatrist has been as haven't seen or heard from him since February.

I would t expect FaceTime either because it’s tied to apple.

I would expect zoom or teams. Or maybe Skype.

Because they are not platform dependent.

@Bluegreen70

I don't really know what difference you expect CAHMS to make, anyway. They can't change how she is thinking and feeling.

They can teach her strategies to help her manage how she is thinking and feeling. That is literally the job of a mental health service.

What do you expect doctors to do about a fractured leg? They can’t knit the bones back together, but they can put it in a cast to protect it, provide crutches so that it can heal without weight-bearing, and pain relief to help with the pain

Sorry to hear this and it must be so frightening to see your DD in distress, and be unable to get help for her.

But this is what the electorate chose. There have been cuts to NHS funding for a decade, in real-terms. On top of that, mental health services are having to pick up work previously done by local authorities, which have been cut even more savagely. No one seems to care until it's their own relative affected.

CAHMS are shit here. I work in a school for children with ESBD and last time I spoke to them we had a 14yo child who had attempted suicide the previous night. There was a 14 month wait until they could even be seen.

I would pay privately if at all possible. I hope things get better soon for you both

Totally understand why you would be furious. Ring up first thing and try to find out what has happened and request that an urgent appt is made ASAP. In Scotland video appts seem to be done via attend anywhere/near me. Clear instructions on how to join the virtual waiting room should have been sent or emailed.

Hope you get somewhere today. Despite CAHMS issues, it is the right thing to do and will be very dependent on the individuals who see her.

@SillyOldMummy

Hiw come she was told about it in your absence, are you being excluded from these conversations about appointments? That seems weird.

I would not expect a Facetime call for a medical appointment. Are you sure she didn't mangle the facts to avoid the conversation?

Because at 16 they are treated as adults (I have a child of that age and am only included as she won't engage otherwise). Oh and most medical appointments are video appointments now, no not facetime but I know people who say facetime even if it isn't facetime out of habit.

Have you actually checked her email to see if a like was sent ? Or yours and all junk boxes ?

I wouldn’t expect a call if someone didn’t turn up to a appointment. They would just go on to the next person.. like every other app anyone makes.

Why don’t you pay and go private ? You already know they are useless.

I suspect what happened was they called it FaceTime but meant a different platform. We have checked all her email folders and then I discovered that they didn’t even ask for an email address for her.

I’m going to phone when they open - definitely not going in all guns blazing initially until I find out what happened.

Completely exhausted, and DD off school with a migraine

Pace yourself OP. I understand your anger and it’s entirely correct but you are your dd’s main resource here and you just can’t afford to break yourself crashing on the rocks of a fucked up system.

I mean this kindly, as someone going through something very similar. Follow up, follow up, complain, shout, cry .... whatever is needed but don’t waste energy getting furious or you will burn out.

It should have been “Attend Anywhere” not FaceTime. No nhs board would allow the use of FaceTime due to information governance.

My sibling worked in CAHMS and it nearly broke her. Workload of 5 staff, unable to see kids for a second time unless they’d had a damn good suicide attempt. Just awful. Left after 2years.

A private adolescent psychiatrist could prescribe medication for her- at a cost.

Most young people use 'facetime' to refer to any video chat platform. Not weird at all. CAMHS probably won't have said facetime, or if she didn't know the platform they were referring to might have said 'it's like facetime'.

Im sorry. It does sound unacceptable that nobody contacted to check why she didn’t turn up. I’m currently accessing therapy through adult MH services and I get links emailed to me (initially they were using zoom but now my nhs trust have their own video platform). On occasions where I’m not on time my therapist always calls me as I’ve had issues getting into the video calls before, usually I get a call within a few minutes of appointment time. If your DD was supposed to have joined a video call I’d have expected someone to contact her when she didn’t turn up. That said, after waiting for 10-15 minutes why didn’t you call Camhs yourself and try to chase up why nobody was getting in touch? It could have been an oversight such as having a wrong number, a missed email or a staff member off sick. In your situation where the appointment was felt to be urgent I think I would have tried to chase the appointment up myself within the given time frame to see if there was an immediate solution, I don’t really understand why you haven’t done this.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this OP, the worry must be awful. I’ve found some of the posts here hugely unsupportive and lacking insight into the desperation you must be feeling.
Our experience with CAMHS hasn’t been good but you should be getting more support than this. Please keep pushing them and the GP to make sure there is an management plan in place.
It may be worth contacting PALS to follow up
On missed call and lack of general support

My daughter was at home waiting - she saw it as like being at the doctor waiting to be called - she thought there was a delay/ emergency. I wasn’t aware until I got home from work by which time they were closed.