What can I expect at CAMHS?

When you first come to CAMHS you may feel nervous about your  appointment that’s normal, but we will do our best to make you feel comfortable and to move at a pace that suits you.

Most young people find that talking and trying out different solutions to  their problems helps them. Some young people also need medication.

Coming to CAMHS does not mean you’re ‘mental’, ‘strange’ or ‘different’. In fact, 1 in 10 young people has a diagnosable mental health disorder and 1 in 4 people overall in the UK struggles with poor mental health.

Forensic services

Our forensic services are for offenders with mental health conditions, who cannot be managed within the referring service.

This is a multidisciplinary service with a total of 75 beds, comprising medium and low secure wards for men, and a medium secure women’s ward.

At the heart of service delivery is the patient’s capacity, within the constraints of their legal detention, to achieve a degree of self determination. Fostering hope,sharing control, and providing meaningful opportunities for personal development and social inclusion are among our primary goals.

Medium secure care

Turner and Halswell wards: both provide assessment and treatment for men; Halswell Ward has 16 beds and Turner Ward has 18 with 7 beds allocated for long term, medium security.

Ruby ward: provides admission,assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation for women requiring medium security. We also have a community forensic team and a sexual behaviour service.

Shaftesbury clinic: assesses threat, provide therapies and rehabilitation to reduce and manage risk of those with a mental disorder (including learning disability) who on admission present a risk to the public.

On completion of their assessment and/or treatment, service users will either:

• return to prison to continue their sentence
• move on their pathway to lower levels of security
• return to the least restrictive environment in the community.

Take a look at the Shaftesbury Clinic here.

Low secure care

Hume ward: provides assessment and treatment for men requiring short to medium term admission.

Rehabilitation flat: the service also has a flat within the Shaftesbury clinic that can be occupied by men or women in medium secure care who are preparing for discharge into the community.

Each ward has a multidisciplinary team consisting of a consultant forensic psychiatrist, junior medical staff, a social worker, psychologist, arts therapist, occupational therapist, a nursing team leader and ward nursing team.

The forensic outreach service

Our FOS is a small specialist team consisting of care coordinators / social supervisors from nursing and social work disciplines, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, senior doctors in training, an administrator and team manager. We provide input to patients living within the Trust five borough boundaries. (Wandsworth, Merton, Sutton, Kingston, Richmond).

We provide input to Trust patients being discharged from low and medium secure inpatient wards.

Read more about our forensic services here and our forensic outreach team here.