CQC: Children and young people mental health review – update on local actions (October 2020)

Summary

This report is an update on the Care Quality Commission's (CQC's) work looking at the quality of, and access to, mental health services for children and young people.

Content

In their previous review, the CQC found that many children and young people experiencing mental health problems don’t get the kind of care they deserve. They found that the system is complicated, with no easy or clear way to get help or support and made a number of recommendations for national, regional and local action to improve mental health care for children and young people.

The CQC have followed up what action has been taken at a local level in response to their recommendations.

They found that the recommendations from the 2018 report were being implemented to varying degrees. For example, while there was stronger prevalence of joint commissioning, almost one in five local health and wellbeing boards reported back that there was no joint commissioning of support for teenagers and young people as they moved to adult services.

The report concludes that continued improvements are needed to make sure the CQC's local recommendations are being acted on.