National award for CAMHS team

Staff in Torbay and South Devon have won a national award for their work to reduce the number of young people facing emergency mental health crisis.

With admission rates for self-harm among young people twice the national average, the Trust’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) set up a crisis home response team.

Its aim was to provide intensive support to young people experiencing mental health crisis in their own homes, thus avoiding the need for them to be admitted to hospital.

The team has seen impressive results over the last year, including:

· A 35% reduction in ED attendance

· 53% reduction in hospital bed days

· 80% reduction in the number of young people being referred out of the area for an inpatient stay in a specialist mental health unit

As well as dramatically improving the experience of young people in most urgent need of mental health support, enabling them to stay within their families and continue with their daily lives, these changes have also resulted in savings of around £1.5m. The team was also shortlisted for team of the year.

The team beat stiff competition from around the UK to win the top award, with 10 other finalists from across England, Scotland and Wales.

Chief Executive, Liz Davenport, commented: “I am absolutely delighted that the team has won this national award. They had a vision for what they wanted to achieve, which was about transforming the service for our young people. They faced plenty of challenges along the way – including recruiting enough staff with the right experience to provide cover out of hours. Thanks to their vision, innovation and determination we are now offering first-rate support for young people with urgent mental health needs.”