CAMHbulance
What happens when a young person in mental health crisis calls an ambulance?
Across the UK, as many as one in five children and young people (CYP) aged between 8-25 live with mental health challenges. Increasingly, an experience of crisis or emergency appears to be the point at which they come into contact with health services.
The CAMHbulance study examines mental health crisis responses provided through the Welsh ambulance service trust (WAST) in the context of rising levels of urgent and emergency mental health needs of CYP in Wales – demand that seems to overwhelm that provision of support by mental health services themselves.
Underpinned by the idea that crisis care is a complex intervention introduced into a complex system, the project adopts an implementation science focus, an embedded case study design and a mixed methods approach to explore the organisation, delivery and impact of how WAST receives, responds to and resolves mental health crisis of CYP, which necessitates exploring the care experiences of CYP family members and staff.
Funding
This project is funded by Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW).
