CAMHS waiting times statistics for Northern Ireland (March 2024)

Published 23 May 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:23 May 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 March 2024, there were 1,990 total waits for a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) assessment in Northern Ireland, of which 1,026 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 March 2023 to 31 March 2024 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 March 2023 to 31 March 2024

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

Trust	31 Mar 2023	30 Jun 2023	30 Sep 2023	31 Dec 2023	31 Mar 2024
Belfast	773	631	643	514	511
Northern	873	793	663	697	611
Southern	429	399	380	429	434
Western	313	333	331	372	434
Northern Ireland	2,388	2,156	2,017	2,012	1,990

Table 2: CAMHS waits over nine weeks by HSC Trust in Northern Ireland from quarter ending 31 March 2023 to 31 March 2024

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 Mar 2023	30 Jun 2023	30 Sep 2023	31 Dec 2023	31 Mar 2024
Belfast	435	378	448	284	253
Northern	496	524	446	415	446
Southern	0	26	81	122	51
Western	155	214	214	233	276
Northern Ireland	1,086	1,142	1,189	1,054	1,026

Figure 1: Total waits for a CAMHS assessment in Northern Ireland from June 2019 to March 2024

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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. Revisions may have been made to previous figures.

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