Children and young people assessed as needing mental health treatment have to wait an average of five months.

But Health Minister David Ashford insisted provision was ’adequate’, while acknowledging the number of referrals had increased.

The issue was raised in the House of Keys by children’s champion Daphne Caine (Garff).

She sought details on numbers for children being assessed and treated by the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

Mr Ashford said 46 young people had been referred to CAMHS and were waiting assessment.

’In addition, there are a further 192 young people who have been assessed by CAMHS and are waiting for CAMHS treatment provision,’ he added.

’The average waiting time is about five months, although cases are prioritised with new urgent referrals assessed within 12 weeks.’

He said there had been ’considerable investment’ in CAMHS and that although the department could always do more, ’I do feel that the current island provision is adequate’.

He pointed out the UK average waiting time was 490 days.

Mrs Caine asked what portion of the department’s mental health budget was spent on children and whether that reflected demand.

Mr Ashford said 7.52% of the mental health service budget was spent on children. There was a 21% increase in referrals to CAMHS from 2012-16.

’As a consequence, considerable investment has been made, and this includes an additional 11.5 medical nursing and allied health professional posts since October 2016,’ he said.

’These resources have enabled the service to provide a range of additional interventions including a wrap-around service providing on-call provision out of hours, 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

The minister added: ’We are also planning to refurbish our Geddyn Reesht building to provide acute in-patient provision for under 16-year-olds.

’This facility will limit the need to transfer acutely ill children to specialist inpatient services in the UK which leads to considerable cost for both the mental health service but, more importantly, families.’