My 17 year old son developed symptoms of severe depression 10 weeks before his 18th birthday. His GP prescribed an antidepressant and told us that they would like to refer him to CAMHS but couldn’t because he was too close to being 18 when the adult service would take over. Suggested some NHS counselling services but when contacted they replied that they were unable to offer him anything until he was 18. He deteriorated further and 2 weeks later had a serious suicide attempt, ending up in hospital. He was told he would see a DPN from CAMHS prior to Discharge. He waited 6 hours for someone to come who told us that they were actually not a proper member of the crisis team. We asked about his ongoing antidepressant medication and were told that it would be discussed at the crisis team MDT the following day and his GP would be contacted. He was made a follow up appointment with the crisis team 10 days later.
The outcome of the MDT was not communicated promptly to his GP who had to chase it up and in fact was advised not to give any further medication - however, fortunately our GP started another drug anyway. The follow up appointment was with a ‘practioner’ and health care assistant who offered no suggestions for treatment and was a total waste of time. They again told us to contact the counselling services who had already turned him down. Our GP received no communication from them and tried to speak to a consultant, but this was unhelpful.
He has remained very ill and has had absolutely no treatment offered by CAMHS for 8 weeks. My husband and I both work within the NHS and in both of our services there is proper provision for 17 year olds to transition across to adult services. The CAMHS service needs to improve this quickly before more young people in their moment of need are failed. We have the resources to take matters into our own hands and have arranged a private psychiatric review and private counselling for our son - many others would not have the resources to do this.
"Lack of provision of mental health service"
About: GPs in Nottingham City GPs in Nottingham City Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust / Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services – Community(City) Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services – Community(City) Nottingham NG3 6AA
Posted by Scared Mum (as ),
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