Two years to get mental health care for young

‘Hundreds of families’ are hit by delays

CHILDREN IN parts of Yorkshire have been left waiting more than two years to be treated for mental-health problems, a highly critical review has found.

NHS England said urgent action was needed to cut waiting times and step up monitoring of children as they waited for care from specialist services in Barnsley.

The regulator uncovered a series of problems facing hundreds of families seeking help amid confusion over the numbers of youngsters waiting for treatment.

Local officials have admitted fundamental change is needed and are drawing up plans to put a new service in place from April.

Official figures from June show there were 350 youngsters waiting for an assessment in Barnsley from child and adolescent mental-health staff.

The average delay between receiving an initial assessment and seeing specialists was 35 weeks.

But some children with complex behavioural problems including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder faced waits of a year, rising to 77 weeks on aver age for those requiring help with mood and emotional issues.

A report by NHS England described waiting times as “very long” following the initial checkup by staff from South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

“Service users can wait in excess of two years for an appropriate intervention,” it said.

The review team said it was given varying accounts of numbers of children waiting to be seen but the total figure remained unclear.

It found that although NHS Barnsley Clinical Commissioning Group officials had been told in writing there was a formal process to “proactively review” the clinical needs and risks facing children and young people as they waited for treatment, “this is not the case”.

Parents were informed there would be a wait to start treatment but were not told how long or given information about contacting services if their child’s condition deteriorated.

Carol Harris, director of operations at South West Yorkshire NHS trust, said increased demand for services in Barnsley had affected waiting times and the level of support available.

She said: “We are working hard to reduce the waiting lists and have set up a new system to ensure we provide support to children and young people while they wait.”

Barnsley Clinical Commissioning Group said the service was being redesigned to offer broader help.