There is often high demand for children and young people’s mental health services, resulting in a long wait for an appointment after your GP referral.

To try and reduce some of the time people have to wait for an appointment, Havering Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) are offering a pre-referral support and advice service for children and young people.

The purpose of the CAMHS clinic is as a pre-referral service to advise GPs if a CAMHS referral would be helpful to the families.

This is a pre-referral assessment appointment and NOT a counselling session. 

Initial referral must be done by your GP. The pre-referral clinic is not designed for young people who have already been referred to CAMHS.

The young person should be present for the pre-referral clinic as the behavioural observations and the ’voice of the child’ are essential.

During the pre-referral appointment the Clinician will access the needs of young person and their family or carer.  From here the clinician will either signpost to more appropriate services, offer to send self-help resources or take the referral and the info gained at the appointment directly back to CAMHS Access and Assessment for an in-depth telephone triage assessment, without the need to return to the GP.

This is a new service recently launched in South Havering, but has been piloted in neighbouring PCN’s with great success.

The clinics will be run by The Primary Medical Health Team (PMHT) with the aim to improve access for children and young people (CYP) into mental health services by:

• Providing a smooth referral process into specialist CAMHS
• Providing direct advice (CYP, family, carer or health care professional)
• Providing alternative resources and services in the view of signposting/social prescribing
• Providing an environment of shared learning of expertise within healthcare settings

To book an appointment you will need to see your GP first who will decide whether or not this service is appropriate for you and will complete the necessary referral form. Then the PCN Care Coordinator will contact you to confirm your appointment date and time.

Clinic dates planned for 2024 are as follows: 17th September, 15th October, 19th November and 17th December.

The clinics are being held at South Hornchurch Health Centre, 106 South End Road, Rainham, RM13 7XJ.

For any cancellations, patients will have to contact their GP Reception Team to inform them.