West Berkshire: Children's mental health care in crisis

Children’s mental health care in West Berkshire is in crisis, with five-year wait times for some services.

Many parents have branded the service as ‘appalling’ and ‘an absolute disgrace’.

A survey has highlighted that Berkshire has some of the longest waiting times in the country.

Nine per cent of those asked said their referral time was between three and five years.

Most (75 per cent) said they believed if they had got access to services quicker, it would have made a difference to their child’s mental health.

Health officials say the post pandemic surge is still swelling demand, but have pledged £1.8m in cash and extra staff to bring waiting times below 12 months.

The Healthwatch West Berkshire report says the district has the largest increases in average waiting time.

One-hundred-and-28 parents and guardians of young people seeking help or who had recently sought help took part in the survey in February 2021. The figure represents around 25 per cent of those receiving help.

The Healthwatch findings were presented to the area’s Health and Wellbeing Board at West Berkshire Council.

“Only a totally integrated approach will succeed in improving outcomes for the burgeoning numbers of post pandemic young people with mental health and other emotional issues,” it said.

Many of the responses within the survey highlighted the issue of very long waiting times for help, with 50 per cent of the responders waiting between one to three years to be given a diagnosis for their child.

In addition, more than half had waited between one to three years to access Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for any reason.

Some parents and guardians said that their child’s condition worsened due to long waiting times. Others believed their child’s education had suffered and that the mental health and wellbeing of other family members had been adversely affected.

“Triage kids earlier!” pleaded one respondent. “By the time we get seen, it may be too late to effectively help.”

A considerable number resorted to paying for private treatment and diagnoses.

In response to questions about the effectiveness of CAMHS, there was an overall feeling that the service was not satisfactory.

“Remember these are the adults of the future and you are letting them down,” a respondent told the survey. “They are thus starting adulthood on the back foot. Constantly changing staff who never read the notes means that the whole story has to be retold every time.”

Sixty-one per cent of respondents said the service had not made a real difference to their child.

“Post diagnosis my child’s mental health has not been good, and she has been self-harming,” said another respondent.

Seventy per cent were unhappy with the information received on discharge with eight out of 10 stating they would have liked more information about where to get help.

Back in 2015, focus on improving these services was pledged in a Local Transformation Plan.

Then, some of the key concerns were about the self-harm rates for people aged 10 to 24 and self-harm rates for 15- to 19-year-olds that were higher than the national average.

The latest version builds on the 2019 plan and includes hiring more people to work in the eating disorder service, increasing the rapid response service to seven days a week and establishing three mental health support teams across Berkshire West.

“Our own health visitors are important when picking up problems in children,” said Martha Vickers (Lib Dem, Newbury Central).

“Sadly we have seen a reduction in the services family hubs can provide. The council should look at the support it is giving to families when it is needed. And we can work on prevention so we can nip problems in the bud. I am sure that would help the service.”

Council leader Lynne Doherty (Con, Speen) said family hubs had not been reduced, but that resource had been redeployed to outreach.

“I want to see the actual data to see if there is a trend to show if things have got worse,” she said.

“We have got lots of fantastic services doing prevention work but they just need to do more of it. There are things we can’t have an actual service for. Young people were telling me it was about social media and peer pressure. What can we do as a society to support rather than providing specific services.”

The board agreed the main issue was around capacity, with issues around recruitment challenges cited.

Michelle Paice told the meeting: “Once you do get an autism diagnosis, which I was lucky enough to get for my son just over two years after referral, if you think you child also has ADHD, you have to go back on the waiting list for another two years. You can’t be seen for both at the same time.”