Local health commissioners commit extra funding to mental health services
NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is investing a further £120,000 each year to improve child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the local area.
Mental health was one of the key topics identified by the Vale of York people during the CCG’s ‘big conversation’ engagement events, when the CCG asked the community ‘what is important about local healthcare services?’.
And mental health is subsequently highlighted as a key priority in the CCG’s commissioning intentions for 2018-19, which were launched in February 2018.
The Commissioning Intentions are the start of a journey of local transformation and, as part of this transformation, the CCG has committed to investing a further £120,000 each year from this financial year (2018-19) to improve child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).
The CCG and Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV), which provides mental health services on behalf of the CCG, have been working closely with partners in the Vale of York area to ensure that the extra funding goes to improving key priority areas within local mental health services. The money will be used to employ extra clinical psychologists and mental health nurses.
The CCG has also committed an extra £90,000 during the 2018-19 year to help facilitate additional autism assessments.
Since 2016 the CCG has invested £200,000 each year for school-based services for early identification and intervention when children show signs of mental health problems.
In York, this has been by way of partnership funding for the highly regarded School Well-being Service, which offers mental health support in all state schools in the city.
The CCG has also invested £165,000 each year since 2016 in mental health services for children and young people with eating disorders. These investments are in addition to the £3 million the CCG invests each year in CAMHS services.
Denise Nightingale, the CCG’s Executive Director of Transformation, Complex Care and Mental Health, said: “Mental health is one of the CCG’s key strategic priorities as we outlined in our commissioning intentions for 2018-19, which reflect the views of the Vale of York people which they shared during our extensive engagement activity in October 2017.
“This extra financial investment will help improving mental health services in the local area by employing more trained staff and improving service capacity, as well as further improving the early identification and intervention elements of the services.
“But it’s not just about spending more money; it’s also working together with local healthcare providers and local authority partners to ensure that the services are tailored to meet the needs of the people they have been created to help.”
