Over 2,000 children in NI waiting to be seen by mental health specialist
2,011 children across Northern Ireland are waiting to been seen by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
The figures, which were obtained by Downtown Radio and Cool FM, also show as of November 2021, 944 children were waiting longer than nine weeks.
The Department of Health has had an ongoing Commissioning Plan Direction Target which has set out that no patient should wait longer than 9 weeks from referral to commencement of treatment by child and adolescent mental health services.
The Children's Commissioner for Northern Ireland is calling for action following on from her report 'Still Waiting'.
"I acknowledge the commitment and seriousness the cross government departmental group has shown in implementing the Still Waiting Action Plan, under very challenging circumstances," Koulla Yiasouma said.
"However, I have to state my disappointment at the limited progress on actions which would make a tangible difference to children and young people’s emotional wellbeing and mental health.”
Action plan
On Wednesday, the Health Minister published an updated ‘Still Waiting’ action plan, alongside its third annual progress report.
However, many of the actions require funding, which was included in the three year budget.
But as we now know, it cannot go ahead because of the first minister resignation.
The action plan contains 44 actions to improve Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. It has been updated to reflect developments and priorities such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the publication of the 10 year Mental Health Strategy and wider policy initiatives.
The Minister said: “The mental health and wellbeing of our children and young people is a priority that needs a societal and cross-departmental response. We need to ensure our children and young people have the resilience and coping mechanisms to deal with the challenges they face.
“Covid-19 has created many more challenges and we need to look at how children and young people have been impacted by the pandemic and address those emerging issues.”
The Still Waiting action plan has been improved and updated to include many new actions which take account of the pandemic in addition to areas such as Children with Additional Needs.
The Minister commented on the Mental Health Strategy which was published last year. He said: “The Mental Health Strategy includes a number of actions to improve and enhance services that support young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
“This includes increasing investment in CAMHS to 10% of the overall mental health budget. While work is underway on a number of the Strategy’s actions, full implementation of the Strategy is subject to securing significant additional investment. Funding for implementing the Strategy was included as part of the Executive’s Draft Budget 2022-25 consultation.”