Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Specialty
The CAMHS service for Hampshire has launched a new website which they have designed with young people. It is for young people, parents, and professionals, and contains useful information for sharing with families on how to manage common conditions including anxiety, depression, sleep problems and help for people in crisis. There are lots of links to useful websites and other support as well as how to refer to CAMHS.
| CRISIS – To be contacted and/or seen within 4 hours: |
| 1. Recent significant weight loss (see eating disorder pathway) 2. Sudden onset psychosis 3. Suicidal ideation with intent 4. Immediate risk of harm to self or others as a consequence of mental health problems |
| The following indicates that an appointment is required within 24 hours: |
| An immediate risk to the health and safety of the young person, such that it is deemed unsafe to wait longer than 24 hours before seeing them. If the need is even more urgent than this, then appropriate provision will be made. These cases would usually be seen by our i2i team for risk assessment and management. Following this an appropriate follow up full appointment will be made with the local team. |
| –URGENT– The following indicates that an appointment is required within 2 weeks: |
| If it is deemed that there are no immediate risks to their health or safety, but it is assessed that the young person needs to be prioritised, these will be completed within 10 working days.The feedback to the referrer must be attempted on the same day by phone and if this is not possible in writing same day.Teams will continue to contact families in the first instance for those where further information is required to establish whether the referral is urgent and this will be fed back to the referrer.For CAMHS clinicians these will be defined as an ‘Urgent Choice Appointment’. Rationale for this will be found in the final section of the Triage form. |
| PRIORITY – The following indicates that an appointment will be prioritised above other routine appointments and will offer an initial assessment in 2-6 weeks: |
| If a referral indicates that a young person needs to be seen for an acute problem such as significant self-harm, deteriorating low mood, increasingly acute anxiety stopping them managing education, or such distressed behaviour that they are unable to manage activities (i.e. school) that they have previously managed, they may be prioritised as requiring a sooner choice. Decisions will be based on clinical need, will often be related to vulnerability of the young person, resilience of the family support network and impact on functioning across domains. Rationale will be recorded in the triage form and will be based on conversations with the family.These appointments will be defined as ‘Priority Choice’ |
| Routine Choice Appointments |
| All other appointments will be defined as routine. Information will be sent out to families with self-help resources, websites and helplines to support them whilst waiting for an appointment, including what to do if the situation deteriorates. |
Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Hampshire is provided by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
The Single Point of Access (SPA) will review all referrals into specialist CAMHS on a daily basis and make an immediate decision about its priority and allocation. Once referrals are reviewed a decision will be made on the most appropriate form of support to meet the presenting need. Where appropriate the young person will be signposted without the need for referring the case back to the referrer if it is felt they require a different service other than a specialist CAMHS service.
Anyone can make a referral to CAMHS, including children, young people and families themselves. Schools are also ideally placed as they often know a great deal about a child and can include this on the referral form; there is no need to refer via a GP and we have written to schools to let them know this.
The consultation line for professionals will continue to be available for discussions around potential referrals into the service or general advice about children’s mental health.
Consultation line – Call 0300 304 0050
Below please find the referral form which needs to be completed and returned to:
Referral forms can also be found at www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk/CAMHS-referral
