CAMHS 5‑Year Roadmap
Image credit: Vitaly Gariev/Pexels
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has launched a new five‑year roadmap for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), setting out a clear medium‑term direction within the wider 10-year NHS Long Term Plan and responding to the continued growth in demand for CAMHS support.
On 19 March, colleagues met to consider how the plan can be translated into practical actions informed by frontline experience.
Opening the session, Interim Chief Executive Officer Ade Odunlade emphasised the shared purpose behind the roadmap, saying: “We want to focus on one thing; that is our patients and our communities and how we support them.”
Understanding today’s pressures
During the session, staff joined by parent and carer representatives and partners, discussed growing pressures across CAMHS, including increased demand for diagnostic assessments and more complex case backlogs. These trends have made workloads heavier and placed added challenges on maintaining safe and timely care.
There was honest and open discussion about what that means for parents' experience of trying to get the right help for their child or young person.
Service Director Nicola Dykes acknowledged the intensity of these pressures, saying:
“I know that people feel caseloads are high and unmanageable. Waiting lists are risky and complex. We can't necessarily determine or describe how complexity has increased yet we all feel it on a day‑to‑day basis.”
To support teams, the roadmap moves away from a top‑down model and gives clinicians more scope to test ideas based on their experience and informed by better use of data. As Dykes explained:
“This plan is about giving you that permission. It's about saying you have this expertise and knowledge… There might be two groups that want to test something. Go with it. Feed back to us and tell us what works because then we can upscale from the things that you've done.”
There was honest and open discussion about what that means for parents experience of trying to get the right help for their child or young person.
Looking Ahead:
This was the first of three events introducing the roadmap to staff, with future sessions set to include community partners and experts by experience. The roadmap places greater focus on partnership working, shifting attention from waiting lists to closer collaboration with community partners. The aim is to support earlier and more coordinated care for children and young people.
CAHMS staff remain central to this shift. Their judgement and day‑to‑day insight will guide how the plan is implemented. Odunlade encouraged colleagues to build this work into their practice, noting:
“It will be helpful to see how you make this plan come alive as you progress into 2026. If we're going to solve the problem of mental health, we need to start early and only you can help us to do that.”
