What is an adult services care coordinator supposed to do?

[Z1nn1a]

My son’s seems to do nothing.

I would say lead the team around the person to come together and develop a plan for appropriate intervention and potentially provide part of it too, plan for management of setbacks as part of recovery and work with the person on reducing risky or self sabotaging behaviours, and plan for discharge when the goals the person and team has for their input have been met. In reality some (not all!) just book reviews, ask how things are and give medication checks until the consultant discharges the person with no real understanding of why they became in need of services or how to address the issues going forward.

They are meant to do regular check ins, be there if you need to ask anything or discuss worries. They can refer you to other services and sort out appointments with psychiatrist.

Care coordinators should be in contact at least once a month, but patients with a care coordinator are those who tend to require more intensive support.

They should be the first point of contact for any queries about meds etc and there to provide support in a crisis, refer to the crisis team if necessary and liaise with the psychiatric if a meds review becomes urgent. They should also be able to organise and sign patients to support with housing or finances, or refer within the team to occupational therapists, peer support workers or anything else that they believe might be useful.

As pp said they should also have 'therapeutic' input.

I am very lucky and have had three very good care coordinators, who have all provided me with a huge amount of support, particularly when I have been I crisis. During those times I have had multiple contacts with them each week and it was a real life line. Even though I have ended up under the crisis team a few times, it has made a real difference having someone who knew me liaising with them. I'm sorry if your experience is different, but when the job is done properly they can have a real impact.

He had his handover meeting from Cahms 1st Dec. He is vulnerable. He has heard nothing. The care coordinator does nothing, doesn’t arrange anything and doesn’t feed back anything from meetings. It’s appalling. Have literally heard nothing for over 3 months.

He doesn’t see him once a month and when I texted him to ask what was going on he said don’t contact me unless it’s re appointment times.

That is really poor and not how it should work. If your son has a care coordinator then he should have a care plan which should be regularly updated. I would try contacting them again and asking for an appointment with them. If you have no luck, then I think you need to complain. They don't sound as if they are doing their job at all.

He has a police case too re something that happened to him to cope with and has started pacing at night again. He has a charity worker still working with him but he can’t forever. It’s so annoying as everything that was said at the Cahms handover was clearly a pack of lies.

Has your son not consented to you being in receipt of information? If not I would contact PALS. You're getting poor care here.

He has consented and said he’ll provide it in writing if needs be. I emailed the generic email NHS for the lead clinical psychologist and another to the service. Will try PALs if we hear nothing. I’m shocked at how awful it is and that’s after a pretty poor service from Cahms.

He will need to put his consent in writing for them to be willing to share.
In similar circumstances PALS told me they were forwarding my email to someone else who never got back to me.
You can also complain to the CCG.
As I said in you other thread, I found the advocacy service to be the most helpful.

Ds's camhs care coordinator often goes missing for weeks on end. Okay when he's on it but otherwise, we are on our own.

Ds is 18 in the summer and we've been told he won't meet the threshold for adult mental health care. But they then said even if he did, there wouldn't be enough staff to see him.

Hope you get a response to your emails. MH care can be shockingly poor.

Pic don’t think your don is missing anything. My son apparently meets the thresholds but is getting zilch.