Mental Health Child and Adolescent (CAMH)

This guidance is designed to improve access to CAMHS for those children and young people who need it most, whilst at the same time making sure that other sources of help have been tried where appropriate.

NHS Lothian CAMHS

NHS Lothian CAMHS provides specialist assessment/intervention as part of a tiered system, which can include consultation and advice prior to referral, and assessment appointment to establish clinical need and priority status.  A full explanation of our tiered system can be found here CAMHS Tiered Model of Service.pdf

During triage, CAMHS assesses:

• evidence of specific mental health difficulties
• any risk of harm to self or others
• severity of symptoms and the degree of impairment.

Should the CAMHS team feel that the difficulties noted represent mild to moderate mental health issues, then the referral may be signposted to appropriate community resources and/or direct professional consultation with members of the CAMHS team if possible.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services are focused on children and young people presenting with moderate (where there is significant risk of deterioration), severe and complex difficulties. They will be offered an opt-in to an initial assessment appointment with the local CAMHS service.

Children aged under five years should meet with the Health Visitor, Public Health or School Nurse in the first instance: CAMHS offers regular consultation sessions for colleagues in primary care should those then be needed.

Specialist Teams within CAMHS

There are several specialist teams which are a part of the wider CAMHS service in Lothian. They may have slightly different access points and referrals criteria and include:

• CAMHS Sexual Trauma team – Meadows / No.54 (for children, young people and their families affected by issues relating to child sexual abuse/trauma).
• PPALS (Paediatric Psychology and Liaison Service).
• CAMHS Learning Disability team.

What Makes a Good Referral?

Referrers need to have met with the parent(s)/carer(s) and the referred child/children, and established agreement about the referral being made. Referrals need to include the usual standard demographic information, but also current confirmed telephone number/mobile and parental surnames if different to the patient’s. Referrers should also indicate who has parental responsibility for the child. Presenting a full picture of current mental health problems, details of ‘why now?’, what has been tried and wider supports and family / social situation is critical. Please see ‘CAMHS – what makes a good referral?’ for further detail.