CAMHS waiting times statistics for Northern Ireland (December 2023)

Published 14 February 2024

Theme: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) waiting time statistics for Northern Ireland
Purpose: For information - Experimental Statistics
Authors (statisticians): Deborah Kinghan, Heidi Rodgers
Publication date:14 February 2024
Issued by: Community Information Branch, Information and Analysis Directorate, Department of Health, Stormont Estate, Belfast, BT4 3SQ
Email: cib@health-ni.gov.uk
Webpage: Children and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) statistics

Children and Young People waiting for a CAMHS Assessment in Northern Ireland

At 31 December 2023, there were 2,095 total waits for a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) assessment in Northern Ireland, and of which 1,104 were waiting for more than nine weeks. Table 1 sets out the number of total waits for a CAMHS assessment in Northern Ireland from 31 December 2022 to 31 December 2023 by Health and Social Care (HSC) Trust, and Table 2 sets out the number of those waits that were longer than nine weeks over the same time period.

Table 1: CAMHS total waits by HSC Trust in Northern Ireland from quarter ending 31 December 2022 to 31 December 2023

Note: CAMHS services in the South Eastern HSC Trust is covered by Belfast HSC Trust.

Trust	31 Dec 2022	31 Mar 2023	30 Jun 2023	30 Sep 2023	31 Dec 2023
Belfast	682	773	631	643	597
Northern	1,011	873	888	663	697
Southern	287	429	399	380	429
Western	363	313	333	331	372
Northern Ireland	2,343	2,388	2,251	2,017	2,095

Table 2: CAMHS waits over nine weeks by HSC Trust in Northern Ireland from quarter ending 31 December 2022 to 31 December 2023

Note 1: CAMHS services in the South Eastern HSC Trust is covered by Belfast HSC Trust.

Note 2: To avoid personal identification, all figures lower than five have been converted to the number three. The Northern Ireland totals have been adjusted accordingly; therefore, may vary slightly compared with other sources.

Trust	31 Dec 2022	31 Mar 2023	30 Jun 2023	30 Sep 2023	31 Dec 2023
Belfast	375	435	378	448	334
Northern	690	496	587	446	415
Southern	0	0	26	81	122
Western	204	155	214	214	233
Northern Ireland	1,269	1,086	1,205	1,189	1,104

Figure 1: Total waits for a CAMHS assessment in Northern Ireland from June 2019 to December 2023

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Since a low of 1,107 total waits for a CAMHS assessment at 30 September 2020, the number of children and young people waiting for an assessment of CAMHS in Northern Ireland has been increasing with a peak of 2,388 total waits at 31 March 2023.

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Metadata

The statistics presented here derive from monthly returns completed by each HSC Trust in relation to Mental Health Outpatients Waiting Times. These returns are submitted to the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) for validation and subsequently shared with the Information and Analysis Directorate (IAD) in DoH. This summary report is created by IAD, and was published on the Department of Health website for the first time on 14 June 2023. The figures will, until further notice, be deemed as Experimental Statistics.

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