The CQC released the second phase of their review of children and young people’s mental health services last month, following fieldwork with services across different parts of the mental health system in ten areas of the country. The report draws on evidence from interviews with staff in schools, charity services and NHS services in the community, in hospitals, and with the young people and families who use their services.
The recommendations for offering person-centred care fall under five key areas:
– involving children and young people in their care to improve their experience
– providing timely access to appropriate services
– working across settings to deliver high quality care
– identifying needs, commissioning and planning care
– improving the quality and accessibility of services
In phase one of the report published in October, the CQC found that the mental health system for children and young people is complex and fragmented and that the quality and accessibility of care varies greatly. In phase two, the CQC gathered new evidence through interviews and focus groups with more than 1,300 people, and used ‘case tracking’ to examine how individual children and young people move through the mental health system.
The CQC found examples of good and innovative practice in all areas that they visited, and the report provides ten case studies of good practice in services around the country. However, they also found that service teams are facing limited resources and increasing demand, making it hard for them to ensure that children and young people have timely access to high quality mental health care.
The report highlights the following recommendations to improve the quality and accessibility of mental health services for children and young people at local level:
- Delivering a shared local offer
Local Transformation Plans should bring together commissioners and service planners with local leaders across education, health, local authorities and the third sector to ensure their local services meet the needs of all children and families in their area. - Improving the quality and availability of data
NHS Digital is starting to join up information on children and young people’s mental health and there is a need for local systems to combine data that is held across health, education and local-authority funded services. Commissioners should ensure that providers collect high quality data and that systems are in place to ensure data can be recorded efficiently by staff working with children and young people. - Drawing on evidence and good practice
All staff should take the opportunity to learn from good practice in their areas and use it to drive improvement in their own services. These improvements could include jointly commissioning and pooling resources, agreeing clear referral pathways, nominating a single member of staff to coordinate care for each child or young person, listening to people who use services, embedding mental wellbeing in school life, supporting and valuing staff.
The report recommendations remind us that children’s experience of and involvement in their own care should be central to the planning and delivery of high quality services. It also highlights that greater collaboration and coordination by local services is needed to more effectively support and care for children and young people’s mental health. Read the full CQC report here.
Does your service need a system to enable staff working with children and young people to efficiently record high quality data?
iaptus CYP is specifically designed for children and young people’s mental health services. The patient record system supports service teams to manage referrals, monitor waiting times, efficiently record information and report data to commissioners and NHS Digital.
Talk to us about how iaptus CYP can support your service, by joining a webinar or requesting a system demo.
