What we found out about CAMHS across Wigan and Leigh
Last year, Healthwatch Wigan and Leigh ran a project, looking into what you think of CAMHS across Wigan and Leigh. This month, we've published our full findings.
CAMHS stands for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. It is the NHS service in the UK that provides support and treatment for young people up to the age of 18 who are experiencing mental health difficulties. CAMHS offers a range of services including assessments, therapy, and medication, and works with young people experiencing various issues like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and self-harm.
Throughout 2024, we ran our project to find what the public thought of CAMHS through various engagement sessions, chats with the public and a digital survey. This was a collaborative piece of work with contributions from the 10 Healthwatch’s across the Greater Manchester Borough – meaning you can find similar reports for all of Greater Manchester too, if that interests you.
We had…
- 402 responses from Parents & Caregivers
- 42 responses from Professionals
- 24 responses from Young People
The project aimed to understand the experiences of service users from the perspective of young people, parents and professionals. The first step involved creating three targeted surveys.
Participants were incentivised to complete the surveys with a chance of winning a £100 Amazon gift - Just in time for the Christmas season. The project strategy involved close collaboration with the CAMHS service provider in Ince to ensure alignment with existing processes and their support allowed us to chat to many parents and young people face to face. Staff were highly supportive and played an essential role in the success of this piece of work.
- 67.5% of parents and care givers who responded said waiting time for an appointment was a barrier when accessing or considering accessing support.
- 63.5% of children and young people who responded said they had experienced issues with the waiting time for an appointment.
- 53% of parents and care givers found it very difficult/quite difficult in finding out how to get support for their child/young persons mental health.
- 38.5% of children and young people who responded were dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with the information provided throughout the available options for support
- 55% of staff who responded were extremely confident/confident at signposting children and young people to onward support.
The main theme which derived from the project was that there was a huge misunderstanding from people’s perspectives as to the referral process into the CAMHS service. There was confusion around the first step in the referral process and whether this was the GP or the school.
It was highlighted that whilst CAMHS workers make regular visits to schools/colleges for assessments, the demand of people needing to see support from the service is high and increasing.
Another significant theme was the lack of awareness of available support whilst waiting for services, leaving many feeling isolated during the period.