Mental Health Services: Children and Young People
(asked on 2nd September 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been waiting over six months to access CAMHS support in (a) Redditch and (b) Worcestershire.
The following table shows the number of new referrals, the number of new referrals who received a first contact at any point within the referral, and the number of referrals who subsequently received a first contact over six months from the referral request date, for those aged zero to 17 years old within the Redditch local authority, from 2019/20 to 2023/24:
Year | New referrals | Referrals who received a first contact | Referrals starting in the year who subsequently received a first contact over six months from the referral request date |
2019/20 | 885 | 625 | 35 |
2020/21 | 845 | 585 | 60 |
2021/22 | 1,265 | 920 | 100 |
2022/23 | 1,465 | 725 | 135 |
2023/24 | 1,565 | 680 | 15 |
Source: Mental Health Dataset.
The number of referrals still waiting for a contact having waited at least six months, regardless of when the referral started, within the Redditch local authority at the end of March 2024, was 645.
In addition, the following table shows the number of new referrals, the number of new referrals who received a first contact at any point within the referral, and the number of referrals who subsequently received a first contact over six months from the referral request date, for those aged zero to 17 years old in Worcestershire County, from 2019/20 to 2023/24:
Year | New referrals | Referrals who received a first contact | Referrals starting in the year who subsequently received a first contact over six months from the referral request date |
2019/20 | 5,290 | 3,740 | 200 |
2020/21 | 5,410 | 3,800 | 160 |
2021/22 | 7,525 | 5,370 | 740 |
2022/23 | 8,035 | 3,880 | 750 |
2023/24 | 8,720 | 3,675 | 70 |
Source: Mental Health Dataset.
The number of referrals still waiting for a contact having waited at least six months, regardless of when the referral started, in Worcestershire County at the end of March 2024, was 4,000.
Provided is the number of referrals where the person was aged between zero and 17 years old at the time of referral, from 2019/20 through to 2023/24. This is because the definition of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the dataset is not clear cut, and the methodology for deriving CAMHS changes over time. As such, the use of age at referral is the most reliable way of defining those referred to CAMHS.
The number provided includes all new referrals in each year where the person was a resident of the local authority of Redditch or Worcestershire county. In addition, the number of referrals who have had a contact is included to provide context around the numbers of referrals which have been received and subsequently had a care contact.
For some referrals it may not be expected that a contact would be recorded. For example, in some circumstances, referrals are received by triage teams. These referrals are subsequently closed without a contact, with a new referral opened once triaged. Additionally, in some scenarios, referral IDs are being re-used. For the purposes of this analysis, the care contact must take place within the same referral for the same person, as such a small number of contacts may not be included within a specific referral, although this is a data quality issue.