A collaborative providing mental health services for children and young people in the East Midlands is seeing improved outcomes and service experiences as it comes up to its fifth anniversary.

The East Midlands Children’s and Adolescents’ Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Collaborative came together in 2021 to make things better for children and young people. This Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week (09-15 February), it is recognising the positive change it is making.

Since April 2021, admissions to inpatient wards have decreased by 61% from 330 to 129 in the 12 months up to October 2025. Average length of stay has also reduced by 80% from 200 days to 40.

This has meant the collaborative has been able to have a clear-eyed focus on providing better community-based services such as a core intensive outreach team as well as providing care closer to home and reducing wait time for admissions by 85% from 32 days to under five.

Simon Harris is Director of New Care Models for the East Midlands CAMHS Collaborative which includes Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS FT, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS FT, NHS Chesterfield Royal Hospital Trust, Derbyshire Healthcare NHS FT, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS FT and Leicestershire Healthcare NHS FT.

He said, “Before the collaborative was formed, too many children and young people were being let down by a mental health system in the region ill equipped to meet their needs. This left them waiting too long for treatment, unable to access the support they needed and, in many cases, admitted as inpatients when this was not the most appropriate intervention for them. Lengths of stay were often too long and placements were away from their local area.

“In the five years the East Midlands CAMHS Collaborative has been operational, we have improved community support and moved away from the old model of community and inpatient teams working in isolation.

“Importantly, our patients and their families are very supportive and we have tremendous feedback that what we are doing works better for them.”

The collaborative has invested around £28 million in community mental health services. This includes CAMHS 3.5 – a rapid intervention service that sees patients in less than two hours from referral to contact – and an enhanced care referral team where face to face access assessments are carried out. The family ambassador team works with children and young people’s families and ward teams before admission, during their stay and also post discharge.  A sensory room has also been developed for children and young people at Berrywood Hospital in Northampton.

Added Simon Harris, “We are committed to continually improving outcomes for children and their families and are next focussing on strengthening the co-production of services – where children and young people join professionals in designing and evaluating new services such as a planned Day Service Model as an alternative to inpatient care.”

Improvements since 2021

Total admissions reduced by 61% from 330 admissions before go-live to 139 in the 12 months to October 2025

Average length of stay reduced 80% from 200 days to 40 days

Average wait time for admissions from referral reduced 85% from 32 days to under five

Average distance from patient’s home to inpatient location reduced 12% from 43 miles to under 38 miles