CAMHS Self-referral and Interpreter Support

Reference: 24-25393

Date response sent: 09/12/2024

Details of enquiry

Please kindly respond to the following questions in details:

1. Do you accept self-referrals?
   1. Do you advertise this capability?
   2. If not, what do you do if you are emailed or sent a referral form (or referral type information) from a child/young person?
2. How do people whose first language is not English usually make a referral?
3. If we were to enable referral forms to be completed in other languages, could you accept them?

Response sent

1. Do you accept self-referrals?

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a small specialist mental health Trust, and not a hospital.  We provide outpatient, and mainly psychological services, and do not provide inpatient nor acute services.

Our catchment areas are national for many services, whilst we are also contracted to provide CAMHS services for a local authority population, Barnet, Haringey.  However only  Camden CAMHS patients who live in Camden and are registered with a Camden-based GP  can self- refer, –as you will see in our description of services on our website: Services – Tavistock and Portman .  Here referral information has been provided against each of our services, listed as a live link to further details on accessing the service, what to expect, and an option to request that information in a different language or format.

You may be interested to note our cost recovery arrangements for patients who live overseas:

a. All our treatments are subject to both a referral (self or GP, as specified), a waiting period, and an appointment booked in advance

b. we only treat patients who are registered with a GP local to their place of abode in the UK, and are entitled to free NHS care unless:

i. The Trust has specific agreements in place with their home countries for invoicing and recharging (Guernsey, isle of Man, Jersey, Republic of Ireland)

ii. The patient is covered by either UK reciprocal healthcare agreements with non-EU countries – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) or Healthcare for visitors to the UK from the EU – GOV.UK

iii. Any patients outside of these frameworks would be covered by either UK reciprocal healthcare agreements with non-EU countries – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) or Healthcare for visitors to the UK from the EU – GOV.UK

a. Do you advertise this capability?

These referral details are specified within the description of each service on our website, along with a live link to details on how to access the service, what to expect, and an option to request the information in a different language or format.

b. If not, what do you do if you are emailed or sent a referral form (or referral type information) from a child/young person?

As indicated above, we provide self-referral and referral forms for completion by individuals, or on their behalf by individuals’ parents, GPs, Social Workers, and other healthcare professionals who want to refer or self-refer to our service.  Self referrals are not submitted by children, these usually come from parents or young people.

2. How do people whose first language is not English usually make a referral?

All referrals received are written in English.   We have to assume that referrals for patients who do not speak English have the support needed from their end to complete the referral from a third party (eg their GP, an interpreter or family member who speaks English).

However once these patients have been allocated an appointment to be seen in our services, our administration team would book an interpreter, using our contracted interpretation services to support our clinical staff and the patient during their appointments and also for some follow-up written correspondence using their preferred language.

3. If we were to enable referral forms to be completed in other languages, could you accept them?

The Trust does not have provision for this, as we do not have an in-house translation/interpreting service to support this process.

Please refer to our response at Q2 above.