Agenda item

Report of the General Manager, Children and Young People’s Services, Durham and Tees Valley

The General Manager, Children and Young People’s Services, Durham and Tees Valley provided members with a presentation to provide an annual update on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for Darlington.

The presentation covered areas including the current framework for planning and delivering mental health services, the current clinical transformation model and pathways through the service along with details such as average wait times and the different services offered.  Key pressure areas were highlighted along with plans to receive further funding in the near future to assist with these pressures.

Questions were raised that included details on staff shortages in the service with information provided that CAMHS currently has a 50% vacancy rate for medics with lack of applicants being the cause of this.  A further question was asked regarding addressing parents of children requiring the mental health services with the response that this is a large part of the care offer with specialist staff available to speak to parents to offer support and help stimulate parental cooperation.

Discussions were held regarding quality of data with members being informed that the service is currently transitioning to a new patient record system alongside the manual capture of data where needed to ensure data integrity.  Further discussion surrounded the average wait time of 463 days for neurodevelopmental assessment due to referral demand outpacing capacity following a 300% increase in referrals compared to pre-pandemic levels and members were provided with details of contact that is maintained with patients during this period.

RESOLVED - Members noted the content of the presentation with a further update to be arranged in 12 months’ time.