Isle of Man Government – £4 million to improve children’s mental health services

We have secured a significant investment of over £4 million to help tackle waiting lists and transform Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAHMS).

Currently, around 1,200 children are waiting for treatment at CAHMS, the vast majority of whom are awaiting an assessment for autism or ADHD. Around £500,000 will be used to immediately recruit six specialist staff to assist with these assessments and provide post-diagnosis support.

Once the list is reduced to a sustainable level, it is expected that the average waiting time for access to CAMHS will be reduced from the current average of 48 weeks to a maximum of 18 weeks (routine assessment), with the aim of providing assessments within six weeks.

If the referral is defined as urgent, the goal is to have the patient seen within 24 hours, and within 4 hours if it is extremely urgent.

It is recognised that more than just targeted waiting lists are needed to ensure the service is sustainable. To achieve this, the majority of the funding (£3.4 million) will be used to transform the way services are accessed and delivered – with a focus on early intervention, community support and the provision of specialist services in educational settings.

The transformation of services will include the creation of a single point of access which will include self-referral, a further 400 shared care agreements with GPs for the treatment of ADHD, the provision of psychological therapies for children and young people with low to moderate needs, and the provision of specialist mental health support within secondary schools and UCMs across the island.

The Minister of Health and Social Care said:

“Access to the right levels of mental health support, diagnostic pathways and appropriate treatment is vital for our children and young people. This funding represents an important step towards improving that access, which was also highlighted in the COVID Review and will play a key role in our forthcoming Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy.

Just as we have successfully reduced surgical waiting lists, we hope this will have a positive impact on children’s mental health waiting lists and help transform services to ensure children no longer face unacceptably long waiting times for mental health support and treatment.

Ross Bailey, Director of Integrated Mental Health Services, said:

“This funding will have a hugely positive impact on our ability to provide the services our community needs. Not only will it enable us to reduce our current waiting lists, but it will also ensure the mental health needs of children and young people are identified earlier and responded to appropriately.

However, our biggest challenge is recruiting for these new positions. The market is very competitive right now and we are seeing issues filling positions around the world. But I am confident that once we find these people, we will be able to quickly start evaluating them.

Specialised CAHMS services were originally designed to manage severe, complex and persistent conditions. However, historically there has been a lack of services on the island for low or intermediate needs, and with the growing demand for health and mental health support, CAHMS services have struggled to manage these needs as well as higher needs cases.

The CAHMS caseload, which includes these low- and moderate-needs cases, has increased 90 percent in the past three years, with more than 13 percent of children and youth aged 4-17 on the island either receiving treatment or awaiting evaluation.

This transformation is designed to address these long-standing issues. Further information on the service transformation will be announced shortly, including an upcoming procurement exercise to identify a supplier who can assist with the implementation of the core functionality of a single point of access and the delivery of psychotherapy and mental health services in an educational setting.