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Care Opinion

Using single point of access

Posted By alex17

"Using single point of access"

About: Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust / Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services – Community(County)

(as other),

My experience of using the single point of access for Community CAMHs and Emotional Health and Wellbeing services has been appalling to say the least. I am a professional working within a secondary school and wished to refer a very distressed young lady to be seen by CAMHs. Her GP is located in Sherwood Nottinghamshire, on sending the urgent referral through to not-tr.CAMHSreferrals@nhs.net I was told they would not accept the case as the GP was a city GP, I then sent a referral through SPA for city and was given a reference number as acknowledgment of receipt for the referral.

Two weeks later the urgent referral had not been acknowledged to the family and after an over night hospital stay for the young person in question she had still not seen CAMHs.

The referral was sent again to the above e-mails address and I was yet again told that this urgent referral was for city. After a colleague contacted the service they said they would see what they could do but would need to read the referral first.

An urgent referral comes through twice and is not read just the GP address is looked at? And why is there not a facility for them to forward to the appropriate point of referral if it comes through to the wrong place?

County or City if a young person needs to be seen and is referred to CAMHs then they should take responsibility of that case and ensure that person is seen, surely?

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Responses

Response from Rachel Towler, Deputy General Manager,, Community CAMHS, Specialist Services Directorate 8 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Rachel Towler
Deputy General Manager,, Community CAMHS,
Specialist Services Directorate

Submitted on 19/06/2015 at 17:34
Published on Care Opinion on 20/06/2015 at 11:05

Firstly, I wish to acknowledged the difficulties you have experienced in your attempt to refer into CAMHS and offer an unreserved apology on behalf of the service. It is clearly not acceptable for delays to occur as you have detailed.

Currently all systems and processes are being reviewed and redesigned within CAMHS to support greater efficiency; the single point of access is one such area.

Although specific client details have not being provided in your post, I have taken steps to speak to relevant staff to highlight the importance of, and severity of your experience. I completely agree that need takes precedence and from the information provided, it is clear that on this occasion process has been inappropriately prioritised.

If you have further concerns, or believe this matter has not been satisfactorily resolved, please contact the service as we are more than happy to meet with you to discuss this matter further.

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Response from Nicola Dykes, CAMHS Service Manager, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 8 years ago
We have made a change
Nicola Dykes
CAMHS Service Manager,
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 07/01/2016 at 13:04
Published on Care Opinion at 14:01

I would just like to take the opportunity to provide an update regards the development of the CAMHS Single Point of Access.

A pilot project has now taken place so to identify and troubleshoot any parts of the access point that caused uneccessary obstacles/barriers. We are at the point of reviewing and evaluating this work with the hope that a new Single Point of Access will be operationalised in the coming months. The feedback that you have supplied has been considered within this piece of work and I would like to thank you for taking the time to post on Patient Opinion.

Hopefully our new Single Point of Access will be more efficient and helpful in the future.

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Update posted by alex17 (other)

Thank You, that's good to hear

Regards

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