A goal between CNWL & WLT, the two mental health providers in North West London, was to develop consistently good CAMHS services across the patch as the North West London CYP Provider Collaborative. Their challenge was to optimise investment into services, focused on community services in particular, by addressing areas of opportunity but this required excellent visibility.

The collaborative recognised that the VOT team had the visibility tools and subject matter expertise to be the insight and transformation partner sought. We set about combining datasets and visualising the flow of service users through the ICS and beyond when placed in out of area beds.

It was agreed that clinical and service leads would be allowed to compare and contrast every other’s CYP services across NWL boroughs to guide thinking. This included incorporating financial ledger information on workforce and cost to understand both efficacy (e.g. recovery success) and efficiency (e.g. cost per case).

Using a suite of views to explore operating model variation, leads were able to design an optimised model and test the impact of service innovations. The results were impressive, leading to the Collaborative being named the Provider Collaborative of the Year 2024.

Children and young people in North West London are now much less likely to be admitted to a mental health ward – instead most are now cared for outside of hospital – with only 5% of children presenting to CAMHS in crisis going on to be admitted to Tier 4 inpatient care.

Key achievements of the partnership include:

• A 40% admissions reduction on pre-pandemic levels, with ongoing admission-trend reduction.
• A 31% length of stay improvement in general adolescent wards despite reduced admission numbers, meaning only the most acutely unwell young people will be on a ward.
• An 18% reduction in crises requiring CAMHS intervention – the increase in presentations seen during the pandemic has been reversed, with the most recent yearly numbers now below pre-pandemic levels.