Children in Care: CAMHS Waiting Times

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I agree. Arguably, if you are being home schooled, you probably need a lot of help. As the noble Lord will be aware, a lot of the services are related to social prescribing, where often people with mental disorders can be helped by involving them more in community activities. Clearly, those who are home schooled are much more likely to be isolated.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on his previous answer about triaging so that those in care can get urgent mental health support. Does he have any targets in mind as to the proportion of children in care with mental health needs who could be seen within, let us say, six months rather than the current waiting time of up to two years?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. The NHS has recently set out a national framework for the practical pathways that it expects ICBs to follow in terms of getting diagnoses. To be very open with my noble friend, given demand, setting targets in this space is probably not the wisest thing to do, but we understand that we need to get on top of this.