Future in Mind cash must be ringfenced for CAMHS teams
Derren Hayes
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
There has been much political debate recently about the health of the NHS, and particularly its finances. Days after Theresa May launched a review of children's mental health services as part of her pitch to create a "shared society", the Prime Minister was drawn into defending the Conservatives' record on NHS spending. As the winter progresses, it is becoming clear that the extra £8bn pledged by David Cameron to meet NHS funding pressures up to 2020 is insufficient to keep pace with the demands placed on it by an aging population with greater treatment needs.
For children's mental health, the issue is more about ensuring the additional £1.4bn pledged in 2015 through the Future in Mind programme makes a difference to the quality of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). The Future in Mind cash has been handed to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to decide how it is best spent locally. There is nothing wrong with that in theory, but evidence is emerging that commissioners have used the money to plug funding gaps in non-CAMHS provision - a recent YoungMinds' survey found nearly two-thirds of CCGs had spent some or all of the money on other services (see analysis).
With the NHS under growing pressure, it is almost inevitable that health funding not protected by a ringfence will continue to be used by CCGs to offset deficits across the board. This will mean CAMHS teams remain starved of funding to employ additional psychiatrists, train staff in talking therapies, upgrade inpatient facilities and reduce waiting times.
Hopefully, May's review will conclude that the only way to ensure Future in Mind delivers the change promised is to ringfence funding for the remaining years of the programme. Failure to do so will see a golden opportunity lost - with mentally ill children being the ultimate losers.
Share best practice to reduce care applications
The fall in the number of care applications received by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service in December 2016 - compared with December 2015 - could mark a significant turning point. For 30 consecutive months prior to December, care applications had marched incessantly upwards, with the rate of growth showing no sign of abating. The latest figures could turn out to be a false dawn, but it may also be the first indicator that concerted efforts by children's social care services and practitioners over recent years to reduce the use of care proceedings are beginning to bear fruit.
As illustrated throughout our special report on preventing care proceedings, local authorities have developed innovative ways to identify vulnerable children and families, and offer support earlier in an attempt to avoid the need to initiate proceedings. Different areas have developed different approaches, with some being more successful than others. The challenge over the coming year is to ensure those areas struggling with high care applications are able to learn from those areas having success.
