Agenda item - Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing and the CAMHS AND PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES UPDATE

Agenda item

Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing and the CAMHS AND PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES UPDATE

Report of the Head of Legal and Governance.

Minutes:

Charlotte Reading and Lucy Anderson, both from the Greater Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Partnership, Catherine Pope and Richard Glover, both from Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and Aileen Wilson, Head of Early Help Services NCC, were in attendance and presented a joint update on to the two agenda items focusing on young people’s mental health.

 

Further to the Committee’s review of the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership and Greater Nottingham Integrated Care System at the October 2018 meeting, an update on the review is now presented regarding issues identified during the implementation of the Transformation Plan and priorities for the forthcoming year.

 

In addition to the detailed reports, the following information was provided and responses given to members’ questions:

 

(a)  All services should be working together towards a tierless and seamless system with a single point of access. Screening and assessment may identify the need for behavioural support, parenting issues, or occasionally child protection or physical health issues. There may need to be challenging but necessary conversations;

 

(b)  Following the initial assessment which usually takes place within a week of referral, the length of waiting times for children and young people to receive treatment/support particularly following a mental health episode or suicide attempt would ideally be shortened. Work continues to address this, but initial contact by mental health colleagues is made within 24 hours of referral. Once the initial risk is considered to have passed, parents can be supported through a short parenting group where they are taught what indicators to look for and possible appropriate reactions. It is vital that parents don’t feel that they are on their own and they know that support is available and that they can learn to trust their children. Advice is also now provided in hospitals;

 

(c)  Young people need to be able to manage their own risks and challenge their perceptions. It is important that young people and their parents/carers understand and can apply coping strategies;

 

(d)  The majority of young people entering the service are aged between 12 and 16 years old. Whilst the transition of children to adult services had been historically awkward in some areas, it should be noted that support in the form of a transition champion is available but that the majority of young people suffering mental health difficulties do not go on to access adult services. Statistics are available but were not accessible during the meeting;

 

(e)  There are local challenges in that there are different service providers in the City and the County, but there’s good evidence of partnership working with the organisations working together well;

 

(f)  There has been a lot of work with schools on prevention but also to ensure that young people can access information, help and support with mental health issues and can be referred to specialist services when needed. There has been resistance in some schools which were reluctant to escalate pupil’s mental health support, but work is continuing to encourage improved engagement;

 

(g)  Although a lot of work has been done to improve young people’s independent access to information and services with a web based presence, it is recognised that there may be further potential to use modern technology, including  apps and social media;

 

(h)  There remain issues around recruitment and retention of specialist staff and it is a concern that fewer people are studying mental health. However, now that adult apprenticeships have been launched, this provides alternative career paths and routes for training and gaining formal qualifications or becoming registered professionals. Careful consideration is taking place as to how career progression can be offered across services and partners to make the offer an attractive career;

 

(i)  A pilot scheme of having a paediatric mental health specialist available to both Kings Mill and QMC hospitals to support emergency presentations has proved so successful that it is proposed to continue but this is yet to be confirmed;

 

(j)  Feedback from young people and their families regarding the changes to services is being collected by each service. Focus groups have been held and young people have welcomed consistency in being able to see the same worker each time, feel uncomfortable about being reassessed at 6 weeks as this is perceived as a pressure to have recovered by then, welcome friendly environments, and have responded that 94% would recommend services to friend. It is vital that young people have confidence in the services and this includes consistent and quality interaction with workers, which in turn means that workers cannot be allocated too heavy a workload as they will be overstretched and quality will be affected;

 

(k)  Hopewood opened in June and although there were a few initial teething problems, the facility is generally operating very well. The onsite school is the same as operates for patients of NUH and works to the national curriculum.

 

AGREED

 

(1)  to thank Charlotte Reading, Lucy Anderson, Catherine Pope, Richard Glover and Aileen Wilson for their attendance and update;

 

(2)  for the Committee to review progress of young people’s mental health and wellbeing services in 12 months’ time.

Supporting documents: