The improving mental health outcomes for children and young people conference at The King’s Fund on 22nd October gave commissioners and providers the latest updates from ministers, NHS England and young people on the transformation of CAMHS.
Alistair Burt, Minister for Community and Social Care, spoke about “the biggest transformation to young people’s mental health and one of the largest investments the sector has seen”, acknowledging the progress achieved since the publication of ‘Future in Mind’. With ‘Future in Mind’ having highlighted significant gaps in CAMHS data, the Minister underlined the need for better prevalence data and the importance of providing children and young people with better information about mental health, tailored specifically for them.
Significant new developments announced by the Minister included;
- the initiation of the first national survey of children and young people’s mental health since 2004;
- a new section of NHS Choices on youth mental health; and
- the launch of a national anti-stigma campaign for teenagers.
While at a national level, prevalence data and better information about mental health for young people are vital, so too is good data about activity and outcomes in CAMHS. This information will help commissioners and providers meet standards and will inform the delivery of Local Transformation Plans. Speakers at the conference recognised the energy generated around the development of these plans, but acknowledged a risk of enthusiasm being dampened by a lack of IT infrastructure to support the collection and management of data.
NHS England reiterated the need for data and good IT systems in delivering CAMHS and informing transformation and its progress. In its guidance on Local Transformation Plans, NHS England identified that services need to:
- Reduce inequalities in access and achieve sustainable outcomes;
- Join up pathways of care;
- Have children tell their story only once;
- Improve transparency of service access and outcomes;
- Establish a clear baseline, then monitor and demonstrate continuous service improvement and overall transformation; and
- Demonstrate commitment to collection of the new Mental Health Services Data Set.
To achieve this, NHSE identified the need for services to improve systems infrastructure and to train clinical, administrative and management staff in how to routinely collect and record outcomes data, and how to use monitoring data in-session as part of treatment.
At present, services use a range of data collection methods including offline databases and a variety of electronic patient management systems.
A good IT system for CAMHS should be able to:
- assist, not interrupt, the clinical session by making outcome measure collection engaging and user friendly;
- gather data along care pathways, including appropriate access to a single care record by different members of the multidisciplinary team;
- ensure that data is available to meet all local and national reporting requirements, including against the new mental health minimum dataset; and
- inform decisions about where services could be improved and track progress against transformation plans.
iaptus CYP, is the patient management system designed specifically for CAMHS and CYP IAPT services. It was designed with your care pathways and outcome measures at its heart, and enables therapists using a tablet to collect data and track progress within a patient’s therapy session as part of their treatment. It also supports services in collecting and reporting on local KPIs and on the new Minimum Data Set (MDS), which is sent easily and securely back to the HSCIC.
iaptus CYP supports services to:
- Comply with the new MDS, mapping service data to the relevant CAMHS fields;
- Capture data for routine reporting at local and national levels;
- Analyse and monitor access and waiting times
- Collect feedback and outcome measures with young people in treatment sessions; and
- Engage young people in setting goals and tracking progress in session.
With years of experience in data management, we can assist with your Local Transformation Plan needs around improved IT infrastructure, provide information to help cost plans, and ensure that you’re able to implement them in your service.
Contact us for further details, or visit our stand at the Capita Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services Conference in London on Wednesday 25th November for a demonstration of iaptus CYP. You can also join one of our iaptus CYP webinars and download our free ebook on selecting the right patient management system for your service.
