The new government green paper on improving mental health services for children and young people proposes key measures to make more mental health support available in schools, and to ensure a better journey to NHS services for those children and young people who need specialist help.
The proposals include providing therapy sessions at school for children in need of counselling, as well as earlier access to NHS services for those with more complex problems. This is to be facilitated through new mental health support teams working in and directly with schools.
Reducing waiting times for specialist services
A new guaranteed maximum four week waiting time for access to NHS children and young people’s mental health services will be phased in. This is in response to the significant variation in access to services that was acknowledged in Future in Mind and in the CQC’s thematic review. The first waiting time standards for early intervention in psychosis and eating disorder services were introduced earlier this year. The new four week waiting time standards will be tested during the trial and roll out of the new mental health support teams, will be operational in some trailblazer areas from 2019.
Better journeys through mental health services
As well as ensuring earlier access to specialist NHS treatment for those children who need it, the green paper recognises initiatives already underway to improve young people’s journey through mental health services.
NHS England has commissioned NICE and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health to develop generic and crisis care pathways to help commissioners and providers improve quality of services and reduce variation. The pathways will be supported by case studies and resources to help commissioners and providers. Plans for multi-agency work with commissioners and providers across health, education, youth justice, social care and the voluntary sector is being supported through Local Transformation Plans for children and young people’s mental health services and are being updated annually.
Improving data and tackling variation
The green paper cites some major steps forward in improving data and transparency on mental health that are already underway. Data on the prevalence of mental health problems amongst children and young people will be made available in 2018 with the release of a prevalence survey report.
National monthly data on NHS children and young people’s mental health services is being collected by NHS Digital through the Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS) and NHS England publishes a quarterly Five Year Forward View for Mental Health Dashboard, which highlights key indicators across mental health. In future, it is expected that mental health trusts will be able to compare their efficiency and productivity against other peer trusts using data held by NHS Improvement.
A good clinical information system can support specialist mental health teams to collect high quality data about activity and outcomes which is central to improving services for children and young people.
iaptus CYP is specifically designed for children and young people’s mental health services. The patient record system supports teams to manage referrals and monitor waiting times and help clinical staff to efficiently record and retrieve information in patient records, freeing up their time for face-to-face contact with the children in their care. iaptus CYP supports services to:
- manage referrals, monitor and manage waiting times
- map their care pathways
- improve patient flow and plan staff resources
- report on the MHSDS
- find operational efficiencies
The proposals set out by the green paper will be discussed at the ‘Children and Young People’s Mental Health: Improving Care, Treatment and Support’ conference in Manchester on 12 December. Call in to talk to us at the iaptus CYP stand to find out more.
