**Trigger warning death***
CAMHS have failed another young person, fatally. R. I. P Jen.
There was a failure of the agencies to work effectively together to ensure that Jen’s needs were met,” the coroner wrote. Safeguarding failure; failure by educational establishments; failure by child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs). “For much of the time between May 2018 and June 2020, she was on a waiting list for therapy from the psychology team and was awaiting assessment.” He concluded that Camhs had failed “properly to assess, diagnose and treat Jen … in order to manage her conditions and minimise her risk of suicide”.
Camhs is the NHS service for children with emotional, behavioural and mental health issues. Its staff includes psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, therapists and social workers. It aims to provide support and treatment, including therapy, medication and in-hospital care. Sharren’s assessment of Camhs, provided in Jen’s case by Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS foundation trust, is simple: “It’s not fit for purpose.”
Jen was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at 10 and with autistic spectrum disorder a year later. Both diagnoses had taken a long time. Sharren had originally approached her GP when Jen was five, then again when she was seven, suspecting she had ADHD (“autism was a bit of a shock,” Sharren says). Those diagnoses came from the paediatric team at Epsom general hospital.