A partnership in North West London has seen a 40% reduction on pre-pandemic admissions to acute mental health wards for children and young people.
The North West London CAMHS Provider Collaborative, in partnership with Real World Health, has resulted in children and young people being less likely to be admitted to a mental health ward.
Most are now cared for outside of hospital, with only 5% of children presenting to CAMHS in crisis going on to be admitted to Tier 4 inpatient care.
The partnership has also seen a 31% improvement in the length of stay on general adolescent wards.
Mental health issues among children and adolescents have been a growing concern, with many young people facing prolonged inpatient stays and limited access to appropriate community-based care.
In addition, there has been an 18% reduction in crises requiring CAMHS intervention.
The partnership, which was initiated during the pandemic, uses Real World Health’s mental health data science platform, which equips providers with insights from patient and workforce data.
By better understanding service user journeys, it helps to identify the flow and service design changes needed to improve access and design care pathways.
Richard Lyle, head of commissioning and contracting West London NHS Trust/the NWL CAMHS Provider Collaborative, said the approach had consolidated previously ‘scattered data’ and helped provide evidence for where resources would have the biggest impact.
‘We’ve become better informed about what works, enabling us to have more meaningful discussions with our commissioning ICB and local authority partners. Over time, this has fostered a culture of positive, informed decision-making and trust amongst the organisations in our collaborative,’ he said.
Using the same approach, the NWL CAMHS Provider Collaborative now plans to integrate non-NHS data into its platform to better evaluate and develop local mental health services.
A key aim will be enhancing both inpatient and community treatment, cutting long inpatient stays and improving transitions to community settings to allow more children and young people to recover in a home environment.
Real World Health’s platform will support day-to-day decision-making with advanced modelling tools and automated patient trend reports targeting key areas and helping to identify improvement strategies.
