Blueprint for young people's better mental health

As Children’s Mental Health Week 2025 gets under way, Alice Fletcher, our Programme Manager for Mental Health, describes our novel approach to improving services for children and young people in our region. You can read more in our Innovation Insights report: A Service Model for Children and Young People’s Mental Health. 

It started with a trip to Sweden and ended with a total redesign model for children and young people’s (CYP) mental health services in the North West.

In 2022 a group of executives from Lancashire and South Cumbria and Cheshire and Merseyside took a trip to Sweden to look at some novel approaches to CYP services. There were some key differences between these approaches and those in our region.

It soon became apparent that children in Sweden often experience the following:

• More timely support for their mental health
• Shorter inpatient stays with fewer readmissions
• Clear multiagency involvement from the beginning
• Crisis alternatives to being admitted
• Parents and carers are involved in the whole care pathway and can stay on wards with the young people where appropriate

Back in the North West, services are very pressured and young people often wait months to be seen. It has been acknowledged that often in these cases their mental health deteriorates significantly. While Sweden has a much smaller population with a higher budget per patient, it should be noted that their mental health outcomes for children and young people are much better, and so it became our ambition to see how we could adopt some of the novel approaches.

Health Innovation North West Coast worked with the system using our model for Complex Change and System Transformation (see report) to develop an ideal model for children and young people’s services, while taking into consideration there was no money in the system – which I think you will agree is a very challenging brief.

“I waited six months to have my first appointment with CAMHS and by that point my situation had got so much worse”

This was just one of the many quotes that we gathered from young people which reinforced just how important this work was for the system.

Through four design thinking workshops we were able to pull together hundreds of colleagues across the North West to redesign an ideal CYP pathway. This went on to form our 2023/24 mental health local programme, where we spent many months socialising this across the system. We had so much input from a variety of multiagency colleagues and it became clear just how important this piece of work is.

“I am sick of having to retell my story to multiple people”

Taking comments like this on board, it was also paramount to have a range of different sectors linked into this work from the very beginning. We spent 2024/25 streamlining our future stage model (see report), taking it to senior forums and completing a gap analysis to bridge the gap between what we currently have in place and what we would need to have to get to the ideal redesigned model state.

Both our local ICBs have agreed to take this work forward through our local programmes and we have been working with them to tailor the outcomes of the work to their current pressures throughout 24/25.

Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB are receiving support through two workshops to weave the gaps we identified, where appropriate, into their two-year plan. These have been well attended and we are excited to see how the work will impact young people in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Cheshire and Mersey ICB have taken the gaps forward and added them to their plan. We are supporting them further with redesigning their offer for 16-25-year-olds. The first of these design workshops has taken place with a massive turnout and some great feedback. We have support in place with Cheshire and Mersey ICB throughout 2025/26 and it will be really exciting to see how this work takes shape.  

Children’s Mental Health Week 2025 runs until 9 February.