Young Shropshire patients with suspected autism waiting more than a year for diagnosis

Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) bosses write that Bee U, the county’s under-25s mental health service, “has managed well during the pandemic” and neurodevelopmental diagnosis is the only area with significant waiting lists.

Senior Commissioning Manager Vicki Pike and Commissioning and Redesign Lead Cathy Davis write that queue times are expected to drop below 12 months by July next year, making them “similar to the national average”.

The Joint Health and Scrutiny Committee was due to discuss their report today.

A separate report for the Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust board says families who have waited more than a year are contacting the service to vent their frustration, and this is having a negative impact on staff and increasing sickness absence.

New patients can be referred to Bee U until the age of 18, and existing ones are supported for seven years after that, Ms Davis’s and Ms Pike’s report says.

Office for National Statistics data from 2018 says 720 schoolchildren in Shropshire, or 1.8 per cent of the total, “had identified social, emotional and mental health needs”, compared to 786, or 2.7 per cent, in Telford and Wrekin.

“The CCG-commissioned BeeU service, since August 2020, has a permanent diagnosis team, who have started to work their way through the waiting list”, they write.

“Due to the length of the waiting list it is not expected to reduce to 18 weeks for 18 to 24 months, yet it is envisaged we will be down to a 12 months by July 2021, which is similar to the national average.

“Bee U has managed well during the pandemic and there is no waiting list for mental health support, just for ND [neurodevelopment] diagnosis.

Funding

“ADHD diagnosis has always been offered as part of the contract and currently the waiting time is just over 18 weeks, with plans in place to get back to 18 weeks or less soon.

“The ASD diagnosis was never commissioned clearly as part of the new tender. There is now a funding uplift to enable the development of a permanent ASD diagnosis team.

“The business case envisages it will take between 18 to 24 months to reduce the waiting list that all children are seen within 18 weeks.”

In a report for the MPFT board meeting on Thursday, Quality and Clinical Performance Executive Director Liz Lockett writes: “In the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin 0-25 service, some patients have been seen on waiting list initiative [sic] but we are now approaching a situation where patients have waited in excess of 12 months and this is likely to increase.”

A “waiting list initiative” is a targeted attempt to reduce queue numbers or clear a backlog.

Ms Lockett adds that the remaining year-long waits “may result in reputational risk” to the trust, and have already been reported in the media and highlighted in the Care Quality Commission’s 2019 report. This rated MPFT as “good” overall, but said “specialist community mental health services for children and young people” required improvement. Concerns raised by the England-wide regulator included waiting lists which were “high and getting longer”.

Ms Lockett adds: “Some families that were aware of the waiting list initiative and have now waited over 12 months are starting to contact the service.

“This is having a negative impact on staff who are having to manage on a daily basis the frustration communicated by families.

“This is already showing increased staff sickness and is a repeating pattern from last year when this was raised with CQC.”

A substantive ASD team is now in place and the trust is looking at ways to protect its staff, her report adds.