CAMHS providers, commissioners and service users gathered at the NHS England’s Children and Young People’s Mental Health National Conference on 16th March.
Minister of State for Community and Social Care, Alistair Burt MP gave a keynote speech restating the government’s commitment to mental health. He announced that more than 30 projects will be supported by Health Education England’s Innovation Fund to improve the lives of young people suffering from mental health issues.
The minister recognised the challenge presented by a lack of data in CAMHS, and confirmed the commissioning of a new national prevalence survey of children and young people’s mental health – the first since 2004 – with results to be published by summer 2018. The survey will address an information gap for conditions and issues that have become more prominent since 2004 such as eating disorders, self-harm and the impact of social media and cyberbullying. To help mental health professionals to address these kinds of issues, the minister also introduced the new MindEd digital risk resources.
NHS England’s Peter Fonagy, National Clinical Advisor for CYP Mental Health described how the CYP IAPT programme has increased the focus on outcomes in services as well as the involvement of young people in their own treatment. He showed data to evidence a 73% reduction in waiting time between referral and assessment in services participating in the early waves of the CYP IAPT programme and urged services to build upon the successes of CYP IAPT by focussing on:
- improving outcomes and accountability
- delivering evidence-based practices
- enhancing youth, carer and community participation
- improving access and engagement
- increasing mental health awareness and decreasing stigmatisation
CYP IAPT will be rolled out across the entire country by 2018. It will be expanded to include 5 new programmes: evidence based interventions for CYP with learning disabilities or autism, working with 0-5 year olds, counselling, combination of prescribing and therapy, and in-patient CAMHS.
