Category: Mental Health

Children’s Mental Health briefing: A briefing by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England

Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England, November 2018
Report that finds improvement in the provision of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in most areas in the country, yet with the exception of eating disorder services, the provision of services in the youth justice system and in perinatal mental health care, the rate of progress is slow. A vast gap remains between what is provided and what children need. As a result, the current rate of progress is still not good enough for the majority of children who require help but are not receiving it. Main findings include:

  • Of more than 338,000 children referred to CAMHS last year, less than a third (31%) received treatment within the year.
  • Another 37% were not accepted into treatment or discharged after an assessment appointment, and 32% were still on waiting lists at the end of the year.
  • Less than 3% of children in England accessed CAMHS last year, a small fraction of those who need help. This is partly because many children who seek help are not accepted into treatment, but also because many children do not know they have a problem or do not seek help.
  • Of those children who did enter treatment, around half did so within six weeks.
    However, nearly 80% of children entering eating disorders treatment are seen within four weeks.
  • Most areas are increasing funding for CAMHS, but parity with spending on adult mental health services remains a distant prospect. Nearly fifteen times as much is spent on adult mental health as on child mental health.
  • In cash terms this means children’s mental health services require an additional £1.7bn a year to achieve equivalent funding to that provided to adult mental health
  • Some areas are already far exceeding the existing NHS target to be treating a third of children with significant need (based on 2004 levels of prevalence) by 2021. Yet for every area exceeding what NHS England expects of them, there is an area failing to deliver.

Click here to view the full report.

Voluntary Reporting On Disability, Mental Health And Wellbeing: A Framework To Support Employers To Report Voluntarily On Disability, Mental Health And Wellbeing In The Workplace

Department for Work and Pensions, November 2018
The government believes that transparency and reporting can support the cultural change required to build a more inclusive society. The voluntary reporting framework has been developed by the government in partnership with leading businesses and third sector organisations to support employers to voluntarily report information on disability, mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
Click here to view the full report.

Using the Care Review Tool for mortality reviews in Mental Health Trusts: Guidance for reviewers

Royal College of Psychiatrists, November 2018
Guidance for NHS mental health trusts to ensure ways of improving services are learned from patients’ deaths is unveiled today.  The guidance, drawn up by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), focuses on patients with severe mental illness and on four ‘red-flag’ scenarios, including where concerns have been raised by families and carers or where patients have experienced psychosis or had an eating disorder. To ensure any opportunities for learning are not missed, trusts are also encouraged to review a sample of other patients’ deaths, such as those with dementia.
Click here to view the full report.

Right treatment, right time

Rethink Mental Illness, November 2018
This report sets out a clear picture of the significant gap in access to health services for people severely
affected by mental illness based on a survey with 1,600 respondents. It identifies:

  • Average wait time for an assessment is 14 weeks
  • 56% of respondents believe they are not receiving treatment in adequate time
  • 30% asked for a service that was unavailable
  • 28% believe they were not referred by GP to an appropriate service
  • 51% felt that they received this support for a sufficient and appropriate time.
  • At least 20 people talked about having attempted or thought about suicide due to lack of services

Click here to view this report.

Fair funding for mental health: putting parity into practice: Briefing

Institute for Public Policy Research, November 2018
The NHS is currently in the process of authoring a long-term plan that will set out what it wants to achieve with additional funding and how this funding will be allocated. This Institute for Public Policy Research briefing argues that it is crucial that this plan raises our ambitions on mental health, what parity of esteem looks like and how much it will cost to get there.
Click here to view the full report.

Progress of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health: On the road to parity

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health, October 2018
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health report of an in depth inquiry into the progress of the government’s mental health strategy, the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. The findings can be split into three main themes:

  • investing in core services for adults severely affected by mental illness;
  • increasing the mental health workforce;
  • better oversight and collective responsibility for mental health

Click here to view the full report.

What could make a difference to the mental health of UK doctors?: A review of the research evidence –

Society of Occupational Medicine, October 2018
Report that finds the incidence of mental health problems among doctors is increasing alongside the growing demands and diminishing resources experienced in the healthcare sector. GPs, trainee and junior doctors appear to be particularly vulnerable, experiencing distress and burnout early in their career.  The stigma associated with disclosing mental health problems and ‘a failure to cope’ revealed in the report mean that many doctors are reluctant to seek help as they fear sanctions and even job loss.
Click here to view the full report.

Access to children and young people’s mental health services: 2018

Education Policy Institute, October 2018
Report from the the Education Policy Institute considering the  state of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in England.  It finds:

  • Referrals to child and adolescent mental health services have risen significantly in recent years.
  • Some areas have lost early intervention services supporting children and young people’s emotional and mental health and wellbeing, including those for children that receive statutory support.
  • Timely and high-quality specialist care will always be necessary, and more needs to be done to ensure it is in place across the country.
  • There needs to be a focus on taking demand out of the system.

Click here to view the full report.

Be the change: Ensuring an effective response to all in psychiatric emergency equal to medical care: Recommendations from the first international summit on urgent and emergency behavioural healthcare

NHS Clinical Commissioners, October 2018
Behavioural health crisis is a global problem. Behavioural health is an inclusive term that covers the emotions, behaviours and biology relating to a person’s mental well-being, their ability to function in everyday life and their concept of self. It includes mental health, substance misuse and the physical consequences that result.  It calls for an integrated, systematic approach to behavioural health crisis care at the national level – this is seen as the only way to end the current fragmentation of care and makes 10 recommendations.
Click here to view the full report.