PaddyF0dder, regrettably I can only speak as I found: lost phone numbers, lack of information, untruths in letters at worst, disingenuousness at best. I was told by a CAMHS nurse that my dd was too old at 17 to be diagnosed with ADHD. The message delivered in a patronising tone.
There was no clarity, no evidence of competence and a lot of messing a young person around and also multiple assessments to backside cover when what I was told would happen didn't happen.
Commissioners decide how the overall budget it spent and beneath them MH Trust CEOs. The system is designed not to provide support for young people.
My dd didn't have family issues or "problems". She developed anxiety and depression, due to coping with ADHD/ADD, they are often co-morbidities. She was driven to cutting with razor blades and taking small overdoses.
The CAMHS system did nothing to help her and there was nothing available for me to facilitate safe care for her. CAMHS couldn't help with a private referral that would have secured support for her because they didn't know outcomes but it was acceptable to them to tell me to do what they couldn't do because they didn't regard it as safe. 
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My dd got the support she needed because we could appoint a consultant psychiatrist privately. Someone who was intellectually able to make the connection with the treatable neuro-developmental disability from which dd was suffering. If within CAMHS dd didn't meet the threshold to be seen by somebody better qualified than a nurse who thought 17 year olds were too old to be diagnosed with ADHD one can only wonder where she would be now.
If the system is underfunded and under resourced then I'd have thought those within it would be working very hard, but no, where I live at 9.15 the CAMHS offices were locked because the staff wete late. What a culture!
The standards I saw were shocking and they were deceitful especially upon responses to a formal complaint - it took a very long time until the ceo actually wrote and apologised for the disappointing and poor standard of service received and acknowledged it should have been better. By which time several months had passed and dd had been diagnosed by then, privately, and had turned the corner.
Whilst some of this maybe about resources far too much of it is about poor cultures and working practices. And it needs to stop.
CAMHS isn't delivered free, like all NHS Services it is delivered free at the point of delivery. My tax return now breaks down where my money is spent. There is one slice for the NHS to whom I pay thousands. There is no breakdown within that. When one of my loved ones needed care, it was not available. Most tragically, not one person at the CAMHS team I dealt with cared and neither did the PALS team or the Director of Children's Services.
My daughter recovered because we could secure high quality specialist care. Not because of CAMHS who served only to make a bad situation worse and far harder than it needed to. There was a culture of excuses and utter sloppiness. Most interestingly within a few days of contacting my MP which I did twice, services miraculously became available to be offered when they hadn't been before despite call after call and letter after letter.
The system may well be an under resourced mess but there are many highly paid ceo's and directors at many trusts who are prepared to take very high salaries for pretending all is well and covering up backlogs. Perhaps if those who are supposed to care had made more noise and risked their dainty necks a little, a little more funding might have been directed to CAMHS.
Ultimately, Paddy, I didn't secure what dd needed from CAMHS so fear not. I secured expert, psychiatric support and diagnosis for her and the therapy she required privately.