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"I feel unsupported"

About: Community Mental Health Services / CAMHS (Child & Adolescent MH service) Stirling

(as a parent/guardian),

My daughter has suspected autism, she is under CAMHS for assessment. While the appointments have all been great and helped us start to put plans in place, they have been hugely impacted by the fact our case manager is regularly unavailable. There is no contingency for someone else to be able to handle these appointments so we have them cancelled on the day, this has become a regular occurrence and as a result our ASD assessment, which is already a long process, is becoming even more drawn out.

I asked to speak to someone higher and so far have been waiting 3.5 working days for my call to be returned and I have been told I am not even allowed to know the name of the person I am waiting for a call from, which doesn't fill me with confidence that the call will ever be returned.

My daughter does not deal well with plans being changed at the last minute, which is one of the things that leads us to believe that she has ASD, ironically the organisation that should be helping her are putting her under more stress by doing this regularly. And I as a parent do not know where to turn to be able to get support for my child when our case manager is unavailable so much of the time.

I feel unsupported and I don't know how to prepare my daughter for a process that has so many interruptions...

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Responses

Response from NHS Forth Valley 4 years ago
Submitted on 12/12/2019 at 12:14
Published on Care Opinion at 12:14


"Dear trying to be a mum,

We are sorry to hear that you have been having difficulty getting in touch with someone from the CAMHS team to discuss your concerns.

We appreciate that for young people, particularly with ASD that change can be stressful and upsetting. We try to inform young people and their families at the earliest opportunity if an appointment needs to be cancelled or re-arranged, however occasionally this is not always possible.

If you need to speak with someone in CAMHS in future please contact Scott Allan Lead Nurse or email scott.allan2@nhs.net.

Scott Allan

Lead Nurse

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

NHS Forth Valley

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