Earlier this year, The House – a publication founded in 1976 by a cross-party group of MPs – uncovered a postcode lottery for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), with some desperate young people waiting up to four years for help.
“A scandalous postcode lottery”
Data from Freedom of Information requests to 70 UK Trusts and Boards revealed what The House called “a scandalous postcode lottery”.
In some parts of the country spending per child was four times higher than in others.
The investigation revealed that waits for a first appointment varied between ten days in some areas and a staggering three years in others.
How does the Island fare?
The House investigation found that average community CAMHS waiting lists in February rocketed by two-thirds in two years in England, meaning children are waiting on average 21 weeks for a first appointment.
Having heard claims from parents of young people on the Isle of Wight of distressing and lengthy waits for mental health support, News OnTheWight sought to find out how the Island fared.
Questions to health providers
We put a number of questions to the Integrated Care Board, and it took two months to finally get answers, but the data shows that the waiting time for a first appointment for children and young people on the Isle of Wight has almost halved since April 2021.
In addition, the waiting time for a second contact has reduced by almost five weeks and the number of young people waiting for an assessment has reduced by 25 per cent.
The data speaks for itself, but it seems hard to square these figures against the news from the Isle of Wight Youth Trust last week announcing a temporary pause in referrals for 18 to 25-year-olds.
Average wait for a first appointment
| Date | Weeks |
|---|---|
| April 2021 | 12.1 |
| April 2022 | 8 |
| April 2023 | 6.3 |
Average wait for second contact
| Date | Weeks |
|---|---|
| April 2021 | 17.7 |
| April 2022 | 19.6 |
| April 2023 | 13 |
Number of young people waiting for an assessment
| Date | Weeks |
|---|---|
| April 2021 | 109 |
| April 2022 | 87 |
| April 2023 | 82 |
Mental health spend per child in 2021-22
When it came to health spend per child, the IW NHS Trust told News OnTheWight that “benchmarking data does not have cost per child”.
They did however explain that the Integrated Care Board (commissioner) has invested an additional £700k in children and young people’s mental health services since 2021/23 and based on 2022/23 data, the IW spend per head on these services was £242 (based on forecast prevalence of need).
A spokesperson for the Isle of Wight NHS Trust added this is “significantly higher than the capitation figure for the rest of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (reflecting the need to provide services in an Island-based setting with a comparably smaller population than other neighbouring systems)”.
Read the article in The House by visiting their Website.
Image: Amir Hosseini under CC BY 2.0
