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Mental Health Services: Gateshead

Answer

The following table shows the number of referrals that subsequently received a first contact over six months from the referral request date from 2019/20 to 2023/24, and the number of referrals still waiting for a contact having waited at least six months, regardless of when the referral started, as of the end of March 2024, for those aged zero to 17 years old:

Reporting Period	Referrals who received first contact over six months from the referral request date	Referrals still waiting for a contact having waited at least six months
2019/20	85
2020/21	150
2021/22	570
2022/23	145
2023/24	60	1,745

Source: Mental Health Dataset.

As the definition of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the dataset is not clear cut, and the methodology for deriving CAMHS changes over time, the use of age at referral is the most reliable way of defining those referred to CAMHS.

The number provided includes all new referrals in each year where the person was a resident of the local authority of Gateshead. In addition, the number of referrals which have had a contact is included to provide context around the numbers of referrals which have been received and subsequently had a care contact.

For some referrals it may not be expected that a contact would be recorded. For example, in some circumstances, referrals are received by triage teams. These referrals are subsequently closed without a contact, with a new referral opened once triaged.

In some scenarios, referral IDs are being re-used. For the purposes of this analysis, the care contact must take place within the same referral for the same person, as such a small number of contacts may not be included within a specific referral, but this is a data quality issue.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

3279

Session

2024-26

Subjects

Children Mental health services Waiting lists Young people Gateshead

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk