Question reference: S5W-31903
- Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 21 September 2020
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Current status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 2 October 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how many children and young people have been refused CAMHS support in each month since January 2020.
Answer
Data on the number of children who have been refused support by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is not held. However, Public Health Scotland collects data on ‘rejected referrals’ in CAMHS, which correspond to cases in which a referral is deemed as not appropriate and the individual may be referred back to their GP or sign-posted to another service.
Data for CAMHS is available until June 2020 (i.e. the latest publication period). The number and proportion of rejected referrals for Scotland is shown in Table 1:
Table 1: Monthly CAMHS Referral Summary - Scotland (2020)
Month | All Referrals | Rejected | % Rejected |
Jan | 3,132 | 650 | 20.8 |
Feb | 3,245 | 684 | 21.1 |
Mar | 2,642 | 675 | 25.5 |
Apr | 823 | 227 | 27.6 |
May | 1,307 | 300 | 23.0 |
Jun | 1,857 | 396 | 21.3 |
Total | 13,006 | 2932 | 22.5 |
These figures sit within a wider context of work to improve the support that is available to children, young people and their families. Our 2020-21 Programme for Government references the work which is underway to develop a full recovery plan for mental health services; to ensure the implementation of the CAMHS Service Specification; and to introduce Community Mental Health and Wellbeing support services for 5-24 year olds. We are also investing in a range of other support measures which include enhanced digital resources on mental health and wellbeing available via Young Scot’s website and social media, and the expansion of the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme which is now available nationally to those above the age of 16.