Agenda item

To review the work around the Refreshed Future In Mind Local Transformation Plan for Children and Young People's  Mental Health and Wellbeing including waiting times for autism diagnosis.

The Health and Wellbeing Board considered a report (Agenda Item 8) regarding an update on the refreshed Future in Mind Local Transformation Plan for children’s mental health and wellbeing.

Andrea King and Andy Fitton reported that a wide range of initiatives across the system were underway to improve emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people. The Government Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision had just been published. Recommendations made were similar to actions already contained within West Berkshire’s refreshed Local Transformation Plan. However the Green Paper did not make clear how possible additional resources would  flow (via health or education) or where additional staff capacity would be sourced from. It was recommended that the ~Health and Wellbeing Board respond to the Green Paper.

Like most other areas of the country, demand for emotional health and wellbeing services had increased and the complexity of presenting issues was increasing. The increase in demand and complexity was being seen across the voluntary sector, schools and specialist services. Nationally there were specialist CAMHs staff shortages.

While waiting times for specialist CAMHS had reduced since 2015, the service was now at full capacity and waiting times were likely to increase unless demand could be managed better at an earlier stage across the system and additional resources in terms of staff and finance could be secured.

Locally, West Berkshire had recently hosted visits by the Children’s Commissioner and Richard Benyon MP to the Emotional Health Academy (EHA) which provided early help to children. NHS England had presented the EHA as a national example of best practice. 1628 were seen by the service in 2017, which had just employed a specialist worker to work with Looked After Children. There was further work to do, in particular working with schools to support children with autistic behaviour.

Councillor Lynne Doherty stated that the report and the example of the EHA demonstrated the success of the Health and Wellbeing Board; many of the recommendations in he Green Paper were already being done through the excellent partnership working between the Council and the CCG. She noted that this would be that last Board meeting that Andrea King attended and she would like to thank her for being a driving force for improving the mental health of children in West Berkshire.

Councillor Doherty noted that the Green Paper called for pilot sites to participate in new approaches to the mental health assessment looked after children and asked if any consideration had been given to putting West Berkshire forward. Andrea King advised that the Children’s Delivery Group was of the view that West Berkshire would be well placed to participate as a pilot and further discussion was required with CCG colleagues. Cathy Winfield stated that she would be supportive.

In response to a question from Councillor Quentin Webb, Andrea King confirmed that a broad partnership including head teachers, GPs and the voluntary sector supported the system for children’s emotional health. Andy Fitton advised that universal services needed to be included and equipped to respond better to children’s emotional health needs.

Rachael Wardell endorsed the preceding conversation and noted that as a society there needed to be a conversation about what was being done to children which meant that they needed emotional health support. She was pleased to report that there were few children in tier four CAMHS placements but there were some welfare placements of out of area and this could be harmful. Issues regarding attachment and trauma were emerging and there needed to be robust arrangements to ensure a strong local response.

Rachael Wardell concluded by recommending that Board members investigated work by Sheffield University which saw dialogue as a social intervention and noted the link to community conversations.

Dr Bahia thanked Andrea King and Andy Fitton for the report and congratulated them on the accolades they had received. He noted the need to push out messages regarding resilience to the communities in West Berkshire. He requested that the Children’s Delivery Group draft a report to the Green Paper on the Board’s behalf.

RESOLVED that the refreshed Future in Mind Local Transformation Plan for children’s mental health and wellbeing be approved.