CAMHS Patient Journey
Imagine you have a box of lego blocks in front of you. In order to make a structure, we need to bring individual blocks together.
This is how CAMHS works.
Services bring together the information, guidance and support from Governance, Managers/Leaders and the Clinical Care Pathways to build a journey individual to the child/young person and their family.
A Journey Through CAMHS
There are many points of decision making and interaction within the typical journey at CAMHS.
- You will see your Health or Social Care or Educational Professional to discuss a referral to CAMHS.
- A referral will be made using our CAMHS SPA Referral Form and sent to us.
- The referral will be received by our CAMHS SPA (Single Point of Access) Team.
- The referral will be triaged by SPA – this typically takes around 12 working hours from receipt of the referral.
- SPA may contact the referrer and/or parents/carers for additional information (if required).
- A triage decision is reached, using the information provided on the referral form, (and from any additional information). If the referral has not been accepted due to not meeting the criteria for our services, you might be signposted to a suitable service, or a discharge letter will be sent to the original referrer.
- Once the referral has been accepted, SPA will determine the clinical urgency, and the appropriate care pathway.
- Clinical urgency is determined as either ‘Routine’, assessment to be offered within 18 weeks, or,
- If the clinical urgency is determined as ‘Urgent’, an assessment will be offered within 2 weeks, or,
- If Routine Psychiatry is required, an assessment will be offered within 18 weeks by CAMHS Outpatient Team, or,
- If the clinical urgency is determined as ‘Emergency’, contact will be offered within 24 to 48 hours from CAMHS Crisis. An assessment might be offered over the phone.
- An appointment letter will be sent from CAMHS for Urgent/Routine/Routine Psychiatry referrals.
- Appointment will be attended.
- A decision may be made collectively that allocation for intervention is required, or,
- A decision may be made collectively that no intervention is required. A discharge letter will be sent to the referrer. You may be signposted to another suitable service for support.
- If CAMHS have decided that intervention is required, you will be placed on a waiting list for the most appropriate Clinical Care Pathway.
- An appointment will be offered with the Clinical Care Pathway clinician.
- You may be offered more appointments along your journey in CAMHS. You may be offered a place in a group, or other types of appointments. CAMHS will continue to offer appointments, until the treatment has been completed. At this point you will have reached the point of transition to another service (such as Adult Mental Health Services), or discharge from CAMHS.
Attendance of Appointments:
It is really important that you attend any scheduled appointments.
We know that it is not always possible to find every appointment convenient, and we appreciate this.
We always ask that you contact us as soon as possible to let us know that you are unable to attend an appointment. This allows us to rebook your appointment, and to offer any cancelled slots to another young person.
Please contact your local CAMHS Team to rearrange any appointments you cannot make.
Late notice cancellations, or not attended booked appointments costs significant amounts of money to the NHS every year, and mean that there is less available for those in need.
You can contact Dudley CAMHS by telephoning 01384 32 46 89.
You can contact Sandwell CAMHS by telephoning 0121 612 66 20.
You can contact Walsall CAMHS by telephoning 01922 607 400.
You can contact Wolverhampton CAMHS by telephoning 01902 44 40 21.
Waiting for your CAMHS Appointment:
We know things can change between the time you are referred into CAMHS, the time to wait for an initial assessment, the wait for allocation and from allocation to treatment.
If you need to contact CAMHS to update us of any changes, please telephone your local CAMHS Team. We will listen, may offer advice, and will update your record.
Whilst you wait for your first appointment, you might find the below resources helpful:
Samaritans Telephone 116 123
Childline Telephone 0800 1111
Papyrus Telephone 0800 068 4141
NHS 24/7 Mental Health Helpline Telephone 1 1 1 (option 2)
Challenging Behaviour Foundation: Challenging Behaviour Foundation Website (link)
SCOPE: Scope Website (link)
Helping Hands: Family Action Helping Hands Website (link)
Cerebra (sleep advice service): Cerebra Sleep Advice Website (link)
SIBS (for young siblings of people with disabilities): Sibs UK Website (link)
Positive Behavioural Support information (BILD website): B I L D Positive Behaviour Website (link)
National Autistic Society resources: National Autistic Society Website (link)
Autism West Midlands: Autism West Midlands Website (link)
ADHD Foundation resources: ADHD Foundation Website (link)
Anna Freud Youth Wellbeing Directory: Anna Freud Youth Wellbeing Website (link)
Mental Health Foundation – Good Mental Health for All: Mental Health Foundation Website (link)
Young Minds Parent A-Z of Mental Health: Young Minds A to Z Mental Health Website (link)
Young Minds Looking After Yourself (Parents & Carers): Young Minds Looking After Yourself Parents and Carers Website (link)
WYSA App: An app for 12-18 year olds, to support mental health. This is free to download, and you can access a free premium account using the code for your area. Download Wysa on Apple Store or Google Play. If you are from Wolverhampton – enter the code: BCWO2023, if you are from Sandwell – enter the code: BCSA2023, If you are from Dudley – enter the code: BCDU2023, if you are from Walsall – enter the code: BCWA2023.
What to expect at your first CAMHS appointment:
We know that visiting CAMHS for your initial assessment can seem daunting. We hope the below information helps you to understand what to expect.
If your child will find it difficult to attend their initial assessment, please let us know. We can look at any reasonable adjustments that can be made, to make the initial assessment more comfortable for your child. You can contact your local CAMHS Team to discuss this.
You can contact Dudley CAMHS by telephoning 01384 32 46 89.
You can contact Sandwell CAMHS by telephoning 0121 612 66 20.
You can contact Walsall CAMHS by telephoning 01922 607 400.
You can contact Wolverhampton CAMHS by telephoning 01902 44 40 21.
You may wish to have a look around at our CAMHS Services before you attend your initial assessment. Some children and families find this helpful to feel more familiar with the building. You can access our 360 views here: Sandwell, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall.
You may be asked by CAMHS to attend a little earlier (around 10 minutes) on the day of your initial assessment, to complete some forms before you enter the consultation room.
You will meet with a CAMHS clinician who will ask you some questions to help their assessment. This ensures we understand the strengths (what is working well), challenges (what is tricky) and difficulties for you and your family. Our questions also help us to understand what resources have helped, or may have not helped in the past.
Some families might not be used to hearing some of the questions we ask during our initial assessment, and might find them intrusive. Please be assured that these questions are necessary in helping us to understand any difficulties or challenges.
Here at Specialist CAMHS, we might have a conversation with you to make sense of some of the challenges, and what might be useful. We might agree with you that some treatment in our services would be helpful.
Following attendance at your assessment appointment, a decision will be made together around what the best outcome would be for you as a family.
This decision might be that advice can be given, that another service would be better placed to support you and your family, or that CAMHS is better placed to support you and your family. Usually people would not be allocated to a clinician at this point. You may be given some information to look at whilst you wait to be allocated to a clinician within CAMHS.
Whilst people are waiting, we seek to keep in contact with families either by letter, or a telephone call. If your situation changes whilst you are waiting to be allocated please contact your local CAMHS Team to keep us updated.
More about Understanding CAMHS:
To learn more about how our CAMHS services work, you can access the Clinical, Managerial and Governance sections in the links below.
