Government to recruit 2,000 additional CAMHS staff

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the recruitment campaign will be funded as part of the existing £1.4bn push to correct the "historic imbalance" between physical and mental health services in the NHS.

The plan, which features in Health Education England report, reveals that the NHS will seek to recruit and train an additional 2,000 nurses, therapists and qualified clinicians to work in CAMHS.

The report said that by 2020/21 the goal is for 95 per cent of children and adolescents with eating disorders to get treatment within a week for urgent cases and within four weeks for routine cases.

The report also reiterates a promise made by Prime Minister Theresa May in January that children and young people with mental health conditions will no longer be placed in settings that are inappropriate for their needs or far from their family home by 2020/21.

Meanwhile, inpatient stays will only happen when clinically appropriate and for the minimum possible length of stay.

The report adds that by 2020/21 the NHS wants at least 35 per cent of children and young people with diagnosable mental health conditions to receive treatment from community mental health services, compared with 28 per cent in 2016/17.

Details of the recruitment plans come amid ongoing concerns about resources within CAMHS. In May a survey found that 76 per cent of NHS mental health workers felt that current level of staffing in CAMHS was inadequate to meet demand.

Last week a report by the Education Policy Institute said children and young people spent nearly 9,000 unnecessary days waiting to be discharged from mental health beds due to factors such as insufficient community mental health support.