Could I have your honest opinions on CAMHS please?

[whateverisabeartodo]

I've worked in mental health in education for some time now and have been offered a role in CAMHS.

There is a good career progression, decent salary, job security, CPD, lots of things I don't get in my current role. However, in my area CAMHS don't have a great reputation and I worry I'd be selling my sole to leave a job I love and believe in for something that is better for me but maybe won't fulfil me as much.

So, just wondered if anyone has experience as a parent of a child accessing CAMHS and what your opinion was? Thank you!

Thanks all, some really helpful views. Very sad to hear the situation is the same across the country as it is in our local area.

One of my children had 7 years of intensive CAMHS involvement until they aged out. Our area was most recently rated overall by the CQC as ‘requires improvement’ (with some ‘good’ areas). My child was very ill at the time of referral and was assessed and started on a treatment plan fairly quickly. Lots of treatments were offered, medications and therapies. As expected, not all were helpful, sadly some were actively harmful but frequency of care was pretty consistent with regular appointments. They were kept on beyond their 18th birthday (when they should’ve been discharged according to policy) in order to complete a course of therapy, this is not standard, we were told that normally the therapy would be terminated as soon as the patient/client turned 18. It had to go to MDT and the financial bids for the decision to be made. So my personal experience of CAMHS was overall positive in my area but I know that’s not the general experience and the CQC report of my local service would suggest that it isn’t the general experience local service users either.

They were then discharged to the care of their GP because Adult services are an absolute mess. You think CAMHS is broken? Bloody hell. There truly is fuck all for adults unless you are acutely ill, services have been cut to the bone. No wonder GP’s, police, ambulances, addiction services, charities and community services can’t cope . It’s just firefighting.

*sex neutral language used to protect ID of child

*Financial bods

Worse than useless.

DD was referred to them initially for help coming to terms with her disability & the anxiety etc that went with it... NOTHING

Years later assessed by a lovely lady who absolutely just got DD, I was so relieved... then nothing

her health deteriorated & she ended up too ill for school ... they sent another woman to our house as a counsellor ... for a noise sensitive very mature 13 yo who was bed ridden with fatigue & pain... they sent someone so much like a noisy over hyper kindergarten play leader, she even looked like one with her bright blue hair & big Timmy mallet glasses & bright clothes. I saw DDs poor face when this woman bounced screeching into her room, despite my warning her that DD responds better to be being spoken to like an adult, is noise sensitive & in a lot of pain... the stupid bitch flopped herself down on DDs bed & really hurt DD in doing so

DD refused to speak during the whole session as she was so angry..l DD refused to ever see "that annoying, patronising & deaf woman again.

Tried for ASD assessment... rejected twice despite GPS backing, citing schools report said she wasn't autistic as their reason..l I got the schools report & it was actually very ambiguous, comments of her using noise cancelling headphones to listen to music when moving around school... which they thought were normal ones...

DD has refused counselling ever since as that was her second bad experience

@C8H10N402 that wasn't my experience. I wrote a detailed letter to the CCG with a number of questions to be raised at their public board meeting. They were minuted and I received a four page response. I need to write again having monitored camhs feedback on our local healthwatch site. I have regular correspondence with our MP too.

I do this because I know we were so lucky to have choices re dd.

No idea
We gave up waiting for them to actually help my self harming and potentially suicidal daughter and went Private
However, Be the change and all that OP

Utterly awful here, and deteriorating throughout the 12 years I've been working in this authority. Covid obviously didn't help, but I suppose if you're waiting 2 years + anyway, another 6 months won't make much difference...

@whateverisabeartodo my close family member is a cahms psychiatrist consultant level. To be honest they don't treat her well. She is in such a stressful senior role. She has problems with a lot of the people under her looking to blame their own inadequacies on her mental health issues. All the other consultants have left and is staffed by locums. Seems like a bad place to work.

That said if the prospects are better I think you should give it a try. I know one of the problems with wait lists is lack of access to therapy before prescribing meds. The waitlist for therapy is so long. They really need people like you. And all the people in the same boat as those complaining on this thread would be helped by you!

Ds was on the CAMHS waiting list for 17 months to be diagnosed with adhd. (Severe adhd - climbing the walls, unable to stand still for a millisecond, regularly putting his life at risk with dangerous impulsive behaviour) his school kept phoning them and our consultant kept writing letters to speed up the process but they couldn’t see him any sooner, he was in a queue and that was that (coronavirus hindered it too) that’s been my only gripe, given the severity, I alongside other professionals thought he should of been seen sooner.

Since he was diagnosed last summer, they’ve been ok, can’t complain, he goes for a monthly appointment, the consultants are ok, they prescribe him medications and are happy to swap dosages about and prescribe extra sleep meds. I’ve needed them to write a letter of consent for ds to have meds crushed and disguised into a drink at school they got this sent the same day, ive needed his consultant to phone school to speak to his teacher about ds behaviour and they are happy to go in to ds special school 20 miles away to observe him , i regularly swap appointments they send to fit in with ds taxi getting back, they attended ds ehcp annual review and had a good input into that, always replied back to my emails promptly, they’ve so far been helpful with anything I’ve asked.

So other than the waiting times. All has been ok for us so far!

CAMHS is a broad church, to be honest. It will depend on area and specialism etc

In our area they are good but there is currently a 1-2 year wait list. Those who can afford it pay private as no real option

I expect most of us commenting here have written to MPs and senior leaders. We all get the same 'we are implementing a new strategy' letters. There's a new strategy every few years but funnily enough the old ones never gets delivered and what repercussions are there?

Some things they did locally. I have many more examples;
-Decided they had too many ADHD patients so reclassified some of them (poorer families) as having other behaviour disorders (akin to neglect rather than medical brain differences which is what ADHD is). Then took struggling children off their meds and made them wait for new diagnoses.

• discharged several children who were struggling to enter the premises for long awaited appointments due to their extreme anxiety or meltdowns on the day. If you can't attend then we can't see you. Bye.
• seem to think ADHD is a behavioural issue not a brain difference. This was a psychiatrist.
• aren't able to name all of the available medication regimes for ADHD and benefits. Again psychiatrist. I had to 'help' them with a couple of options.
• prescribing done by senior nurses with very basic grasp on most issues and quite negative views on parents. See above.
• not following the NICE guidelines themselves but taking huge exception to most private practice.
• refusing to accept private diagnoses leaving children without the medication and ongoing care they need.

I really want to be sympathetic to their staffing shortages and underfunding but I can't because there are failings against children going on at a catastrophic level. And the staff I've met are really far up their own a*s. They take gaslighting to a whole new level. The nice/good ones leave quite quickly.

My son has seen someone once in the last 2 years and he's on a controlled substance and is supposed to be monitored every 6 months. But they did send him a colouring book and felt pens during the second lockdown (I think perhaps from Capt Tom money) so it's alright then!

Oh the twit dd saw after a hospital admission told me, with a tinkly laugh when I told her that dd had been diagnosed with ADHD, "now mum, at 17 she's a bit too old to be diagnosed with that".

Funnily enough it was dd's turning point.

A year previously dd had a CAMHS appointment at 9.30am. We arrived at 9.10 and the gaff was locked. The staff drizzled in from about 9.20. Their hours are 9-5 with zero flexibility. Therefore I venture that they aren't quite as busy as they bleat. If they were and if they cared, they might turn up for work on time. Not once when I called at 9am on the dot were the phones answered, or at 9.05 or at 9.10. It is an absolute disgrace.

Oh and I didn't appreciate the eye roll when I told the practitioner that she may call me Mrs Hellebores as I was Imogen's mum NOT hers.

Surrey and Borders Partnership!

@RosesAndHellebores

Oh the twit dd saw after a hospital admission told me, with a tinkly laugh when I told her that dd had been diagnosed with ADHD, "now mum, at 17 she's a bit too old to be diagnosed with that".

Funnily enough it was dd's turning point.

A year previously dd had a CAMHS appointment at 9.30am. We arrived at 9.10 and the gaff was locked. The staff drizzled in from about 9.20. Their hours are 9-5 with zero flexibility. Therefore I venture that they aren't quite as busy as they bleat. If they were and if they cared, they might turn up for work on time. Not once when I called at 9am on the dot were the phones answered, or at 9.05 or at 9.10. It is an absolute disgrace.

Oh and I didn't appreciate the eye roll when I told the practitioner that she may call me Mrs Hellebores as I was Imogen's mum NOT hers.

I don't like CAMHS but this bit of your post suprised me "Their hours are 9-5 with zero flexibility." as they've always been known for flexible working our way and advertise in in their vacancies so I'm curious to know how you know their individual working hours?

Teacher here, prepandemic my area sent letters stating 24 month wait which could be longer....the name literally creates eye rolls when Sencos have to utter its existence
Best intentions and should be a great resource for so many, but...

Their hours are strictly 9-5 here in Surrey. Anything after 5 is sub-contracted to therapists who can't take on complex cases or diagnose, etc., working for charities in partnership with them. 6 week blocks after which the young person is discharged and goes back to the back of the queue.

@RosesAndHellebores

Their hours are strictly 9-5 here in Surrey. Anything after 5 is sub-contracted to therapists who can't take on complex cases or diagnose, etc., working for charities in partnership with them. 6 week blocks after which the young person is discharged and goes back to the back of the queue.

You mean the service hours.

Apologies, I interpreted your post to mean that you were privy to the working contracts of each of the individual practitioners you saw entering the building. Which of course you couldn't possibly be.

Surely if their published opening hours are 9-5 /the office should be opened and phones answered between 9 and 5.

@RosesAndHellebores

Surely if their published opening hours are 9-5 /the office should be opened and phones answered between 9 and 5.

I don't disagree with that at all.

But I've worked in several environments where staff work work on different contracts. So the people you describe as 'drizzling in' at 09:20 may not have been on contracts that required them to start at 09:00.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

I have worked in several different work environments too and when the office hours are 9-5 the office is open between 9-5 and the phones are answered. Not so at our local CAMHS.

And if I am told there is zero flexibility to provide any appointments outside the hours of 9-5 to support young people to miss as little school as possible, I expect a service to be provided between the hours of 9-5. It really isn't a difficult concept. If my staff are due in at 9am, I expect them to be at work and ready to start work at 9am. Not slithering in at 9.05, going to the toilet, making a coffee and a bowl of porridge........ If staff are paid to render 7 hours between 9 and 5, I expect them to be available for work during that time.

@RosesAndHellebores

I have worked in several different work environments too and when the office hours are 9-5 the office is open between 9-5 and the phones are answered. Not so at our local CAMHS.

And if I am told there is zero flexibility to provide any appointments outside the hours of 9-5 to support young people to miss as little school as possible, I expect a service to be provided between the hours of 9-5. It really isn't a difficult concept. If my staff are due in at 9am, I expect them to be at work and ready to start work at 9am. Not slithering in at 9.05, going to the toilet, making a coffee and a bowl of porridge........ If staff are paid to render 7 hours between 9 and 5, I expect them to be available for work during that time.

My point was you don't know the individual contracts each practitioner is on, I have known many to be in flexible working contracts with core hours. You don't seem to want to hear what I'm saying, though, so that's the end of that.

OP must know all this. Chronic underfunding. Staff deal out platitudes to parents who often know more than they do. Not fit for purpose. To even consider working for them shows a chronic lack of understanding and a question over your judgement.

Absolutely hopeless.

For my own child, CAMHS were fabulous. Was contacted and triaged very quickly, no complaints- however, a low level need, had we needed further services we would have a very, very long wait.

From a professional point of view, CAMHS are absolute staggering incompetence and wishy washiness (not at all what desperate young people and their families need!)

The service is in dire need of experienced staff.