CAMHS waiting for times for urgent?

[silverflowers]

Dd was referred to camhs about 5 weeks ago as an urgent case, as we have been trying to get a referral for over a year, and she is deteriorating. I'm not here to bash camhs, just simply wondering if anyone has any experience of the length of waiting times for an urgent case? Thanks

One, it really depends on where you are referred. We’ve had a 6 week turn around for dd self harming aged 6, but then 6 months past that appt when it was deemed to be ASD. Now that we are ‘further’ in the system, it may be about a month for specialist cahms services. For a teenager self harming, it seems to be a very long time....

In my team it depends on the nature of the urgency, if it is to do with suicide risk then they are seen within a week, or sooner if critical.
However, I'd suggest to ring the CAMHS team and ask to speak to the duty worker, and describe your child's deterioration. That may well bring the appointment forwards. If you have no joy with that and are really concerned, go back to your GP, they can sometimes speed up a referral.

My daughter (self-harm and suicide ideation) had a telephone interview the day after the GP referred and was seen in person the following week. Therapy started the week after that.

In my team it's very much a juggling act of capacity/urgency. It's best to ring and either speak with on call clinician or the person son you've the initial apt with to talk through concerns. If ever in any doubt if her safety then GP or A&E.

I am sorry you are going through this and hope your dd gets the care she needs. CAMHS varies from county to county. Here in Surrey it's now subject to a County Council Inquiry because even after a £2.3m cash injection, waits for assessment have increased to about 23 weeks.

My advice would be to follow up every communication in writing so that you have an audit trail because ime they deny what they have advised re timeframes, deny they have recommended x or y, and create further delays by losing contact details. Copying in your MP helps too. It's a question of being the squeaky gate and if you put your concerns in writing they can't then deny they were explicitly advised of parental concerns.

I hope you have support and your dd gets the help she needs.

If you phone them they should be able to give you an idea of wait and where you are on that list.

Our urgent referral took 18 weeks to be seen...

I got it wrong. My apologies. In my area the average is now 30 weeks, plus 23 for an intervention. So, more than a year. Surrey and Borders have apologised but not detailed what they are going to do about it.

Self harm,anxiety,depression and suicidal thoughts.Luckily we have a good GP who is seeing her regularly but even with her trying to speed things up it has taken 4 months for the referral and another month for an appointment.