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Social care and health
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Health and Wellbeing Board
Publication detail

The Child & Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) JSNA has recently been approved by the CAMHS Redesign Board and is another needs assessment published from the JSNA’s current work programme.

This piece of analysis complements the extensive JSNA on Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Warwickshire which was completed in 2013.

Much of the data and context in the previous needs assessment remains relevant; however, this piece of analysis recognises the limitations of national and local prevalence estimates and instead focuses on referral data from Warwickshire’s specialist CAMHS service covering a three-year financial period from March 2013 – April 2016.

This data has been used to better understand the cohort of children in Warwickshire who require specialist CAMHS support and seek to understand some of the wider risk factors associated with children’s mental health.

Some of the key messages from the needs assessment include:

  • Warwickshire specialist (tier 3) CAMHS received just under 12,000 referrals, relating to 8,901 children and young people in the three years from April 2013 to March 2016.
  • The number of children referred to Warwickshire specialist CAMHS increases with age until its peak at children aged 15 years after which the numbers fall again.
  • Nuneaton & Bedworth had the greatest number of children referred to CAMHS (2,046 children or 23%); the district/borough in Warwickshire with the second greatest concentration of children. North Warwickshire had a much lower proportion of children referred to CAMHS (11%) compared to the rest of the county despite an average concentration of children (21%).
  • The presenting problems for children referred to CAMHS were recorded for a quarter of all referrals (2,303 children) in the three year period. Of that 25%, the average number of presenting problems recorded was seven and just over a quarter (27%) of those children were referred to CAMHS with at least one severe presenting problem.
  • The most common presenting problems were emotional difficulties (including anxiety, phobias and OCD) which were recorded for nearly four in five (80%) children (1,827 children) where it was recorded. One quarter (25%) of these children had co-occurring emotional difficulties.
  • The average age of children referred to CAMHS changes for some presenting problems, depending on the severity of the problem. For example, the average age of children presenting with selective mutism was 10.3 years, however, those who were presenting with severe selective mutism were 4.1 years younger on average at 6.2 years. Conversely, the average age of children presenting with OCD was 11.5 years, however those with severe OCD presented at an older age of 13.9 years.
  • For the purposes of this analysis, we were able to join 99.6% of postcodes provided by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust (CWPT) for Warwickshire CAMHS referrals data for the three year period (April 2013 to March 2016) to Mosaic; a customer insight tool for understanding household and customer types, allocating every household in the country to one of 66 categories.
  • Group M (Family Basics) households account for 6% of the Warwickshire population but represents over 17% of the current CAMHS referral profile. Conversely, Group N (Vintage Value) households account for 6% of the Warwickshire population but represent under 3% of the CAMHS referral profile. A Group M resident is over five times more likely to be referred to CAMHS than a Group N resident.
  • Mosaic allows us to distinguish between targeting volume and risk. The former targets the groups and types with the greatest number of people referred to CAMHS and the latter representing those most at risk of being referred. Three Mosaic types (M56, M55 and M54) feature in both the volume and risk profile. These three types represent just under 1,200 (or 13.4%) referrals:
    • M56: Solid Economy – Stable families with children renting better quality homes from social landlords
    • M55: Families with Needs – Families with many children living in areas of high deprivation and who need support
    • M54: Childcare Squeeze – Younger families with children who own a budget home and strive to cover all expenses.
      • Camp Hill, Nuneaton and Bedworth
      • Brunswick, Warwick
      • Newbold & Brownsover, Rugby
      • Sydenham, Warwick
      • Kingswood, Nuneaton and Bedworth. The top five wards with the highest number of households with target Mosaic types (M56, M55, M54)
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