This month we have produced an innovative analysis concerning the need and demand for Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The Cordis Bright CAMHS stress-test presents a national picture of trends in mental health services for children and adolescents, and then examines how these trends vary by local area. Our analysis shows a range of interesting trends and findings including:

• The number of people in contact with CAMHS and the number of open referrals in these services have both increased substantially over the past 4 years, by 66% and 76% respectively.
• The planned annual spend by CCGs on CAMHS has only increased by 26%, suggesting that funding is not keeping up with the overall increase in caseloads and demand for these services.
• There is a higher degree of variation in how CCGs are performing both as a snapshot in time and in terms of trends over time; the national trends disguise substantial differences between CCGs.

Read more about this and about other recent policy and research developments by downloading the Pulse below.