Experiences of using Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Derbyshire

In addition to an awareness of the national and local focus on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Healthwatch Derbyshire had received a cluster of comments from users of CAMHS, which were of mixed sentiment. This led Healthwatch Derbyshire to choose CAMHS as a work priority from January – March 2015. The aim was to explore these experiences in more detail, to find out what was working well, and what could be improved.

These reports will provide service providers and commissioners with some useful insight into how service users experience CAMHS, support service development plans and provide suggestions for improvement.

Since 2014, 33 local Healthwatch across the country have spoken to over 1,000 people to understand their experiences of using autism services and what improvements can be made.