Audit of children rejected for Mental Health service referrals to be held

A review of children whose referrals to mental health services were rejected will be held, the First Minister has announced.

NHS figures show about one in five referrals was rejected in 2015, with the number affected totalling around 17,000 children and young people over the last three years.

Conservative MSP Graham Simpson raised the issue at First Minister's Questions and called for a reduction of the 18-week referral target to 12 weeks as recommended by mental health charity SAMH.

Nicola Sturgeon said: “All children referred to specialist children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) are assessed on an individual basis.

“If through that assessment a clinician does not believe that CAMHS is the best course, then of course we would expect the child to be referred on to an appropriate service.

“Next week, as the chamber is aware, the mental health minister will be bringing forward our new 10-year mental health strategy.

“I'm able to tell the chamber today that one of the early actions of that strategy will be to commission an audit of rejected referrals and findings from this audit will help ensure that children are being referred to the right services and services are able to provide the help that children need.”

Earlier this week, Barnardo's Scotland backed Scottish Labour's campaign for an investigation into the issue and said there were ''serious issues'' with the process of referral to CAMHS.

The children's charity said it had become “increasingly concerned” after carrying out a review of its own services which support about 3,000 children and young people which found half to have mental health issues but three-quarters of those were receiving no service from CAMHS.