Agenda item

The Transformation Project Lead Commissioner Child and Adolescent Emotional Wellbeing, Mental Health and Corporate Director of Adult, Children and Young People Services and Director of Public Health were in attendance to introduce the report.

The report provided an update on key achievements in implementing the Hillingdon Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Local Transformation Plan which was being supported through the development of the Hillingdon THRIVE network.

It was reported that the key challenges previously had been around the need for earlier intervention with children and young people that was not clinic based. The waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) had always been an issue nationally and therefore new ideas of engagement were introduced. The progress made in 2018/19 and the development of the early intervention and prevention initiatives in Hillingdon was highlighted to the Committee. It was noted that the KOOTH online counselling services had been well received.

It was reported that there had been an increase in engagement with black and minority ethnic (BAME) young people, schools and GPs were the two highest referring agencies to KOOTH and the current contract with Hillingdon had been extended to July 2020. Goal based outcome measures had been introduced which was working well. It was noted that KOOTH 18 – 25 was a planned area for development. Significant and inappropriate workload had allowed services to profile their offer to enable more effective preventative work to be conducted. As a local authority there was additional value and services that could be provided to residents and this demonstrated a good example of shared working.

The triage approach and referring children and young people to appropriate services was applauded by the Committee and Members welcomed a similar initiative for adults’ services.

The Committee was keen to view data indicating how many schools and colleges had taken up KOOTH and how many students were going ahead with it in any future reports. Although the success in meeting the 85% target was positive, there was still a 15% deficit that could not be ignored.

The CCG and other partnerships need to be congratulated on the new approach and the fact that the issues in tier 1 and tier 2 were being addressed. However, concerns still remained about the support available for tier 3 and 4 and whether enough was being done to address the issues at that stage. The legislative change moving assessments to three – four weeks was welcomed.  

Members thanked for the report.

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the following key progress including:

1.    The development of the local offer available for Children & Young People and families in ‘Getting Advice’ and ‘Getting Help’ (building resilience and early intervention and prevention), particularly, the continued progress and performance in Q1/2 2019, by the new on-line counselling service KOOTH which had increased access to emotional well-being and mental health services for children and young people living in Hillingdon.

2. Developing an integrated early Intervention and prevention model. A draft service specification had now been developed locally as an output from the 3 system wide workshops. The partner agencies (Local Authority, CCG and Education) were developing plans to pilot an early intervention and prevention model. The CCG and national charity P3 had been successful in securing Department of Health funding over the next 3 years to support the early intervention and prevention work.