Manx Care is recruiting new staff to deal with a growing number of referrals within the island’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

Referrals have gone up by more than 10% in the last year and there are now more than 800 young people awaiting assessment.

The has been recent investment in the CAMHS service which means six additional clinicians are being recruited from nursing, psychiatry and therapy.

Clearing the waiting-list backlog is expected to this initiative is expected to take some 12 months to complete. Priority will be given to those children and young people with the most acute need or longest wait time.

A spokeswoman for Manx Care said: ‘The new clinicians are from different professional backgrounds including nursing, art therapy, social work and psychiatry. These new roles will provide cover for the current established CAMHS caseload which will allow other members of the team to undertake the necessary assessments and interventions with clients currently on the waiting list.

‘The CAMHS team has in recent months experienced extremely high levels of calls from families seeking information regarding the status of their original referrals.

‘Commencing in November 2024, the CAMHS team will be proactively reaching out to families in order to provide information regarding the assessment pathway and to agree assessment dates.

‘During this time, the CAMHS team would respectfully request that parents and guardians try to limit contact with the service to those who are actively receiving treatment.

‘Please also ensure that if you are offered an appointment that is no longer needed, you cancel it ahead of time, which means that the team will be able to offer it to another family.’

A Freedom of Information request sent to Manx Care showed that referrals to CAMHS more doubled in March, April and May compared to 2023.

However, Manx Care said the rise is largely due to a ‘caseload validation process’ in a bid to drive down waiting times.

But organisation did concede new referrals had still increased this year with an increased of 89 when compared to the previous 12 months.