Yesterday marked the end of phase one of CQC’s review of children and young people’s mental health services. It follows the Prime Minister’s request for CQC to conduct a review of quality and access across the system of mental health services for children and young people.
CQC used three sources of information as the foundation of the report; inspection reports, a review of recent policy and evidence about children and young people’s mental health services and engagement with people who have expert knowledge and experience of children and young people’s mental health services.
CQC found that the system ‘as a whole is complex and fragmented’. When good care was found it came from ‘a collaboration within services and also between different organisation and services’ as opposed to different organisations that did not work together in a ‘joined-up way’.
The report also found that more children and young people are being diagnosed with some types of mental health problems than in the past. Safety seemed to be the biggest concern in specialist child and young people’s mental health services.
It is worth noting here that this is phase one of the review and the next phase involves CQC looking at what could be done to make it easier to improve access and quality.
